Students from a local primary school joined thousands of others from across the country in a simultaneous sing-along event last week.
Music Count Us In brings teachers, parents, students and the music industry together to celebrate music and music education.
Staff and students from Armadale Primary School learnt the words and some Auslan sign language to this year’s tune We Are and sang it beautifully as a whole school at precisely 9.30am on November 7.
Music specialist Bree Hartley said the school’s 400 students were just a drop in the ocean as more than half a million children sang the same song at exactly the same moment all across Australia.
“That sense of connection to fellow children all across Australia is pretty special,” she said.
“There’s something really fundamental about creating music together and on this huge scale it’s even more amazing.”
This year’s song was written by five high school students under the guidance of John Foreman and Jack River.
Ms Hartley describes the song as a life-affirming song and said it was a pleasure to teach to the students.
“Students at Armadale Primary have been learning We Are since the end of term three,” she said.
“We started learning the Auslan for parts of the song at the beginning of this term and the students picked it up so quickly.”
Music Count Us In has been internationally recognised as the world’s largest school music initiative and Armadale Primary School has been taking part in the event for the past ten years.
This year’s sing-along saw more than 3400 schools take part across the country.
