We Make Music Digital Awards

A special celebration event was held recently for primary schools across East Ayrshire that have earned Bronze and Silver We Make Music Digital awards.

The award scheme recognises and celebrates digital music-making activities, and participating schools can achieve Bronze, Silver or Gold accreditation.

Lochnorris and Galston Primary Schools have earned their Bronze award, while St Andrews, St Sophia's, St Patricks and Mount Carmel Primary Schools have each earned their Silver award.

At the special event Holly and Sarah-Cate from P7 at St Sophia's Primary explained their award journey. They said:

"Our school took part in a six week course. It was so fun and we really looked forward to learning more each week. We were able to be really creative, taking songs that we liked and changing the beat so they sounded very different and we also learned about instruments and how they worked. One of our favourite parts was learning songs on the piano and adding that audio into different tracks. We loved our We Make Music Digital journey!"

All the teaching and learning was supported by the Sonappa resources, and teachers were given access to the online blended learning resource with animated lessons which support the creative process of making original music and developing skills and understanding of the fundamentals of music and music technology. They made good use of the GarageBand app, which is a digital audio workstation and music sequencer that can record and play back multiple tracks of audio.

Councillor Elaine Cowan, Spokesperson for Education, and Children and Young People said:

"It was wonderful to hear from Holly and Sarah-Cate about their experiences of the We Make Music Digital award. It is very clear that our young people loved learning more about music making and music technology, and from speaking to their teachers they enjoyed teaching music through resources that don't require specialised knowledge.

“The award is about creativity and also developing the digital skills of our children and young people for the future. I was delighted to present the awards to each school."

We Make Music Scotland is led by the Music Education Partnership Group, a membership organisation that aims to tackle inequality, realise potential and challenge perceptions of music education.