There were three workshops, for lower, middle and upper school and we covered animals, counting, communities and protest song while singing in Swahili, Mandinka and Wolof languages. We went outside in the sunny weather too, which helped conjure up a suitably authentic atmosphere.

Thanks to all the children and staff for making me feel so welcome.

The School runs instrumental and creative music classes on Saturday mornings and has quickly gained a good reputation for its teaching, approach and atmosphere.

I have helped to cover various classes at the school over the past year and am delighted to become more involved with them.

The classes run on Saturday mornings throughout term time, beginning on 4th September.

Following on from previous years, Notes on a Story (P1-3) will be running as part of Creative Health Cover with an expanded range of books as a focus for music making.

This year, Russell the Sheep (theme: sleep) by Rob Scotton joins It’s a George Thing (PSD/ friendship) by David Bedford and Russell Julian, Marvin Wanted More (food/ eating) by Joseph Theobald and The Tickle Tree (sleep) by Chae Strathie and Poly Bernatene.

These workshops equate with Go With the Flow 1 and are available in other authorities.

In addition, I will be running Surround Sound workshops during the Summer term, exploring music inspired by nature and utilising natural found objects to create an ensemble that performs for a recording. Intended to tie in with the John Muir Award, this was successfully piloted in a few schools in May to coincide with events relating to the International Year of Biodiversity. There is already interest in this for 2011.

These workshops equate with Wild Music and are also available for other authorities through me.