Music and drama teacher Margaret Nicholson says “every child at Dubbo West Public School can sing” and so they did this week among a choir of 700,000 students spread across Australia.
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Dubbo West Public School’s 390 students and preschoolers took part in Music: Count Us In (MCUI) on Thursday.
It is the biggest simultaneous sing-along in the world run by Music Australia and funded by the federal government’s Department of Education and Training.
In 2018, 3500 public and private schools took part in MCUI “at the same time, on the same day all around Australia”.
Music and drama teacher at Dubbo West Public School, Mrs Nicholson prepared the students for the event who were accompanied by 22 classmates playing ukuleles.
They sang ‘One Song’, celebrating unity and the joy of music, at the designated time after practising it with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra via live stream.
“Our school did come up on the live stream with a little three-second grab of students saying Music: Count Us In,” Mrs Nicholson said.
After the official sing-along, Mrs Nicholson called for an encore from the Dubbo West Public School participants only.
“I had a little girl in kindergarten stand up and do the Auslan (Australian Sign Language) signage and everybody followed her,” she said.
The teacher said the students aged four to 12 years had been given the opportunity to learn the sign language of the Australia deaf community as part of their preparations for the sing-along.
Mrs Nicholson was among 10,000 teachers to register to teach their students ‘One Song’.
“It’s important that all children have access to music education and singing is a great gateway into that,” she said.
“I always say everyone can sing and every child at Dubbo West Public School can sing and they love it.”
