SAINT Kieran’s Catholic Primary School students are forming their own school song that they can sing with feeling in school assemblies and special occasions.
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Each word has been changed, adapted, and fitted in after two days of workshops.
But they have not been doing it alone.
The school has enlisted music teacher, international composer and music teacher Paul Jarman, from the Central Coast of New South Wales, to be their writer-in-residence.
They did not have long to put a song together.
Mr Jarman was in Mount Isa for two days to help the students out.
“If you’re on fire, two hours is long enough,” Mr Jarman said in the second day of sessions on Tuesday.
“I think we were on fire yesterday.”
But if you were not inspired then two weeks was not going to be enough time to put a song together, Mr Jarman said.
He said the difficulty with a poem was that every single line had to be “gold”. It would be scrutinised over time.
Principal Matt Tyrie said getting the students to write their school song together was about creating school spirit.
“This year we’re focusing on our school story and school pride and Paul Jarman was a piece in that jigsaw,” he said.
“For the purpose of working with our students to be inspired by our story and the ground our school sits on.”
Mr Jarman was not told by the principal what elements the song had to have.
The students had to tell him what was needed so they felt a sense of ownership over the song.
However, Mr Jarman liked the fact the school was on Kalkadoon country.
The surrounding land elements like the nearby creek and the surrounding hills would likely be acknowledged early on.
The school’s pillar of Catholicism would undoubtedly be acknowledged in the song. St Kieran was a lover of knowledge and of nature, rather like Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order of which Pope Francis had been a part of, Mr Jarman said.