Big Sing Schools Day on the Beach
The Big Sing Schools Day on the Beach was inspired by the Darke Visions Festival, the celebration of playwright and environmentalist Nick Darke.
It is a day to explore the beach and its processes, discover things that have washed up and their origins, express some of these things through dance and art and join in a massed sing at the end of the day.
This year we welcomed St Agnes, Indian Queens, Sandy Hill, The Bishops and 
Gwinear primary schools to Porthcothan for a day of workshops led by Jane Darke, film maker and director of The Wrecking Season, Andrew Tebbs community artist, Angela Renshaw from Sing to Success and dancer Lois Taylor and UCF Dance students. For the first time this year, Mia and Patrick from The Red Cross joined us to run a workshop on Migration, using the context of our coast line to help children understand what it might be like to have to leave your home.
The weather was typical for this year’s summer but our enthusiasm prevailed, and even though we all got a bit wet during our final sing, spirits stayed high.
Feedback from teachers:
‘Very inspirational and provokd in depth learning across the curriculum’
‘We used all the teaching resources and they were really useful’
‘Lois [dance leader] really engaged my class’
‘All my class loved the day. We are looking at the beach differently now…’
Feedback from children:
‘Jane showed me so much about the beach I did not know’
‘I will try and use less plastic now’
‘I learned that the Red Cross is a company that helps people in tsunamies’
‘[I learned that] things get washed up on the beach from different countries’