Category Archives: News

Fife’s Secret Song!

A practice session at St Margaret's PS 🙂

A flashmob of children from four Dunfermline primary schools performed a secret song they helped compose called ‘Fife goes Olympic’ today.

Around 170 primary 6 &7 youngsters gave unsuspecting shoppers at the Kingsgate Shopping Centre a big surprise when they performed their song for the first time ahead of the Olympic Torch Relay in Dunfermline.

The pupils from Cairneyhill, Duloch, St Margaret’s RC and St Leonards Primary Schools have been working together on the top secret project which was supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and Fife Council under the ‘Summer of Song: Celebrating the Olympic Torch in Scotland’ banner.

The children wrote their very own Olympic Song for Fife during a songwriting process which was led by musicians from Edinburgh based charity, Fischy Music.

The charity worked with the children over the course of four weeks to compose their song and co-ordinate their special flashmob surprise. 

Fischy Music has worked directly with children for over 14 years and their resources, promoting emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing, are used in thousands of schools across the UK and beyond.  

Also helping to support the performance on the day were the Kingsgate Shopping Centre Management team and representatives from Queen Anne Singers and Dunfermline Choral Union.

Heather Gibson, Area Cultural Co-ordinator from Fife Council who lead the project said: “This really has been a top secret project as we wanted to make sure everyone got a big surprise!

We were delighted to receive funding from Creative Scotland and the council to make this project come to life. We also worked closely with the council’s Education Service who advised us on potential schools to develop the project with and also recommended the specialised skills Fischy Music could bring to this very exciting idea. 

I’d like to thank them, the children and staff from the schools involved, who really embraced this idea from the very beginning and who were delighted to be involved in making Fife Secret Song a reality.”

As a thank you to the hard work and dedication of the children, the staff, Fischy Music and Fife Council’s Cultural Partnerships Team to make this flashmob happen, please help us promote Fife’s Secret Song – ‘Fife Goes Olympic’ far and wide.  Tell everyone you know to go to www.youtube.com/Thefifecouncil to view Fife Council’s flashmob clip and also search Dunfermline Flashmob which Colin Weaver (parent) kindly put up of almost the full concert!  Get ‘sharing’, ‘blogging’ and ‘tweeting’!
 

People and Communities Fund

The Scottish Government has launched the People and Communities Fund. The fund is aimed at registered social landlords and other community anchor organisations such as community development trusts. There are two main priorities for the investment: employability and preventative action.

There will be at least £6m available for allocation in each of the three years from 2012/13 to 2014/15. This funding is available to organisations to allow them to deliver the services and/or projects that have been identified by the community as helping it achieve its outcomes.

Understanding Social Enterprise – a two day programme for CLD practitioners.

20th and 21st June 2012 in Perth from 10am – 4pm.

Venue to be confirmed

The CLD Standards Council for Scotland in partnership with the Scottish Social Enterprise Academy is offering a two day Understanding Social Enterprise Programme to community learning and development practitioners who work directly with young people in Scotland. The programme will introduce the concept of social enterprise, the challenges faced by enterprises and assess the future for this dynamic and emerging business model. Participants must be able to commit to the full two days and numbers will be restricted to a maximum of 16.

The Standards Council is meeting the cost of the course programme and this will include refreshments and lunch on the two days, plus transport on study visit(s).

If you are interested in this event please contact Angus Williamson for further information and an application form.

National Poetry Day 2012: 4th October

This month it’s all about getting ahead with National Poetry Day 2012. 

National Poetry Day 2012- star theme

You’ll find postcard order forms, advance information on what teaching/activities resources you will find in the months to come – and a list of the poems to be featured on the postcards, so you can get ahead with planning. Bookmark this page!

Commitment to community learning

Legislation will be considered to ensure that communities across Scotland have access to learning opportunities needed to develop skills and help people into jobs.

Click on image

Education Secretary Michael Russell has indicated legislation for local authorities will be explored as part of the Post-16 Education Bill to support the government’s commitment to provide access across the country to crucial services such as youth clubs, parenting classes, English language tuition and groups starting up social enterprises.

Click here for all the info

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland- CPD

The Short Courses programme 2012/13 from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is now available!

The Short Courses programme at the exists to support access to and participation in the wide range of performance and production arts specialisms here at the Conservatoire.  They also help widen participation by creating schemes, projects and partnerships to engage with communities of students less likely to take part.  Their short courses are designed to benefit all ages and stages of development, lifelong learners and also on-going professional development requirements in dance, drama, music, production, screen and teaching skills. 

Click Short Courses – Portfolio 12-13 to view the programme