School harmony

By Kelly Yates
STUDENTS at Narre Warren North Primary School belted out the tunes as they joined thousands of children from schools across the nation singing the same song at the same time.
The students gathered at 11.30am on Thursday 2 September and sang as part of Australia’s biggest music initiative, ‘Music Count Us In’.
The national song, ‘Come Play Your Part,’ was an original composition, which was the result of a writing workshop for secondary students held earlier this year.
At the end of the workshop, John Foreman selected ‘Come Play Your Part’, to be the 2010 Music Count Us In song. Performing arts specialist Janet Taylor from Narre Warren North Primary School said research had shown that there were links between music and positive benefits to student development, including close links to English and Mathematical learning.
“Performing arts and music education have always had a high profile at Narre Warren North and is part of the weekly school program,” she said.
“All the Narre Warren North Primary children had fun learning and singing ‘Come Play Your Part’ and have voted that they want to participate in next year’s biggest Australian school music gig making this an annual event on the school calendar,”she said.