Welcome back!

 

I hope you had an enjoyable summer break and are ready for the new term ahead.

 

We have been very busy at CânSing preparing new material for you and making plans for the next phase of training delivery.

 

Over the next few months we will be working with clusters in Flintshire, Denbighshire, Wrexham, Conwy, RCT, Cardiff and The Vale. Many thanks to those of you who have got in touch to nominate schools to take part.

 

Our new songs will be released shortly, and to support this we will be hosting some twilight training sessions. If you are interested in attending one of these sessions please email info@cansing.org.uk

 

Best wishes

 

Suzanne

 

CânSing Project Manager

Once again, June 21st was very busy for the CânSing team and this edition highlights just some of the events that took place in schools across Wales . All of our Animateurs visited events; from Wrexham to Ceredigion and Cardiff to Wrexham. I attended two events myself, Bryn Elian School in Conwy with Elin Llwyd in the morning and Rhosnesni School with Jenny Pearson in Wrexham in the afternoon. Both events involved over 100 children from primary schools in their cluster and were excellent examples of the fantastic work of all involved and of course provide strong evidence of the value of the programme. We received lots of positive media coverage of the day, including a lengthy interview with myself and Emma Cavendar-Morris (Head of Music at Tredegar Comprehensive) on the Roy Noble programme on BBC Radio Wales.

 

On a more personal note, events like these are so, so important to me. All too often it is easy for those of us who work “behind the scenes” to forget the impact our work has on real children, young people and teachers. Seeing, and hearing, these events first hand reminds us of why we all work so hard and why it is so vital that we continue our efforts to make sure CânSing supports schools and pupils long into the future.

 

Whilst I wish you all a restful summer break, there will be no such rest for the CânSing team who will be working on the new additions to the songbank and plans for the training schedule for the new academic year.

 

Best wishes & thanks for your continued support!

 

Suzanne Barnes

CânSing Project Manager

 

Copy of Bulletin July 2012 http://www.continyou.org.uk/wales_cymru/resources/files/can-sing-july-2012

As you know we are celebrating our second National CânSing Day on Thursday June 21st, with activities large and small happening all across Wales.

 

To support these events we have released 4 new songs:-

  • ‘Consider yourself’ – Lionel Bart (Oliver)
  • ‘Now lads, let’s all rejoice’ (Moliannwn) – Welsh Folk Song
  • ‘Hey, you’re cool’ – Robat Arwyn.
  • ‘Os oes gen ti gân’ (‘If you have a song’) A new composition by Welsh composer Owain Llwyd and lyrics by
    Meirion MacIntyre Huws (Children of Wales Bard, 2001)

We also have additional support material including a template press release, poster, top-ten tips from our team.

 

We are hoping for various media coverage of the day, including an interview on the Roy Noble programme on BBC Radio Wales. We look forward to hearing all about your events, big or small, we will be issuing a special edition of our CânSing bulletin with reports from across Wales - so why not include details of your celebration?

 

Best wishes

 

Suzanne

 We are holding our second National CânSing Day on Thursday, 21 June. All schools involved in the CânSing project are invited to celebrate their achievements on this day.

We are delighted that many schools across Wales are already planning to take up this opportunity to bring pupils together, unite voices and celebrate what they have achieved, using the CânSing resources (at www.cansing.org.uk).

This annual event demonstrates the success of the CânSing project. We are confident that the experience will make a lasting impression on both the teachers and the children – and will encourage them to use their voices today and well into the future. 

 New resources

To celebrate National CânSing Day, we will be releasing new resources on the website, as well as a CânSing Day Pack. The new songs are:

‘Consider yourself’ – Lionel Bart (Oliver)

‘Now lads, let’s all rejoice’ (Moliannwn) – Welsh Folk Song

‘Hey, you’re cool’ – Robat Arwyn. 

This year we have commissioned Welsh composer Owain Llwyd and Meirion MacIntyre Huws (Children of Wales Bard, 2001) to compose a song to celebrate National CânSing Day. The bilingual song is called ‘Os oes gen ti gân’ (‘If you have a song’). 

We are very happy to be able to announce that we now have three new and exciting songs available on the CânSing website, which are:

- Stand By Me

- Something Inside

- Down By the Riverside

We hope you have fun exploring, learning and teaching these new resources!

 

 

Save the date!

National CânSing Day

We are already planning our second national CânSing Day, which will be held on Thursday, 21 June 2012.

Just like last year, all five of the CânSing animateurs will be available to support schools on that day.

We would particularly like to support school clusters that wish to host transition days and would like help from an animateur.

If you would like an animateur to attend your school on 21 June, please let us know as soon as possible by emailing info@cansing.org.uk.

We are planning to produce some new resources for the CânSing website, and want to find out what you would like to see! We have created an online survey to capture your views. Please spend five minutes completing this survey, by following this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D9FZYFD.

The deadline is 20 February.

We are also keen to discover what young people think about our Songbank and exercises. We would, therefore, like to facilitate some focus groups with pupils. If you have a group that would like to influence what materials are added to the CânSing website, email info@cansing.org.uk.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continuing support for CânSing. The team has been overwhelmed by the positive feedback received so far – so much so that we are adding a section to the website so that your comments can be seen by everyone. Please keep them coming!

Education Minister, Leighton Andrews, today announced £250,000 of funding to extend an innovative project to promote singing in schools for another year. 
 

The CânSing programme was introduced in 2009 to help school children find their voice and take up singing, both as part of activities within the school curriculum as well as out of lesson time.

The programme has provided training, support and guidance on the promotion and benefit of singing to over 500 schools in Wales, with a further 140 schools to be engaged by March 2012.

The programme has been positively received in schools and an independent evaluation found it promoted confidence and motivation in both teachers delivering the activities and the children and young people who took part.

Schools also found that literacy and language skills had improved as a result of the programme and that it had succeeded in engaging boys, who are sometimes reluctant to participate in such activities, and children and young people with special educational needs.

The CânSing website is also proving very popular with schools, receiving on average over 15,000 unique hits per month.

The new funding will enable a further programme of support to be delivered to over 250 schools until March 2013.

Mr Andrews said:

“An important part of the educational experience for children and young people is gaining confidence. Through the CânSing programme we hope to motivate and involve children and the wider community with school life and enhance their experience.

“I am pleased it is having a positive impact in schools. Improving literacy skills is one of my main priorities as Education Minister, so I am encouraged by findings which show the scheme is improving literacy levels in participants.

“The funding I have announced today will allow the programme to continue for another year, ensuring that more schools and pupils can carry on enjoying its many benefits.”

The programme is delivered by the charity ContinYou Cymru, in partnership with local authorities. It is aimed principally at pupils in Years 5, 6 and 7.

Suzanne Barnes, CânSing Project Manager said:

“We are delighted that the Education Minister has recognised the achievements of CânSing to date and has agreed to support the programme for another year.

“We have been very encouraged by the praise the programme has received and it is great news that many more pupils will now be able to benefit from this.”

New songs

We have been working hard in Aran Studios (Caernarfon) with Emyr Rhys , recording the new songs. In response to feedback, we have been producing some festive tracks for you to try this term. The following are already available:

• The shepherd’s song

• Silent night

• Noel, noel, noel (re-mastered).

You can also find these new songs on the CânSing website:

• Miggledee maggledee

• Notin’ around.

And, we have added new interactive screens and Song Support Sheets for:

• Rap 1,2,3

• The song of the elements

• Canoe song

• Scoo – be – do

• Oh happy day.

We will be adding more songs very shortly, so look out for:

• Rock a my soul

• O re mi

• Stand by me

• Something inside so strong.

 

Finally, I wish you all a very happy Christmas. Please do let us have feedback on how you are using our resources. I’d particularly like to hear from you if you are using our new material, perhaps in your school nativity or Christmas show!

 

Nadolig Llawen i chi gyd!

 

Suzanne Barnes,

CânSing Project Manager