The Young Regional School of Music and St Raphael’s are celebrating 19 years of collaboration through the music school outreach program.
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The school has been attending St Raphael’s to bring the joy of music since 1999 and school principal Michael Gallagher says it is a wonderful partnership.
“I brought the outreach program with me from my previous school in Harden,” he said.
“It gives our kids a pathway during school hours of upskilling them as individuals which then feeds back into our school.
“They get their individual skills and then they can join our school band and get that shared experience of music,” he said.
Mr Gallagher said the program provided a good access point because students and their parents didn’t have to part with thousands of dollars to be involved with a chosen instrument.
“There is the specialisation that they give, that is handy, schools will have their own teachers of music but it is the individualisation of it that can really provide that spark that feeds back into the school,” he said.
“It boosts their academic performances as well, there’s probably more interest in music then there ever has been, but are there more people producing music, I wish there was.”
Young Regional School of Music CEO, Matt Bolger, said he was proud to have a collaboration with St Raphael’s.
“We are very happy with the support of St Raphael’s to allow us to come and teach during school lessons, it doesn’t happen in every school,” he said.
“We work with the school to determine what they are looking to do. It’s always within the NAPLAN environment, but we’ve got to reinforce the importance of arts and music for the overall development of the student, and we are finding our enrollments are increasing as a result of that message.
“There is so much research out there on how kids can be happier when they are doing music, I get the importance of maths and science and I stand by that 1000 per cent, but the well rounded student going into the future is also doing music,” he said.
Mr Bolger said the school would be celebrating it’s 35 birthday soon and wanted to thank St Raphael’s for their partnership.
“We turn 35 years next year and the outreach program covers a radius of 100km from Young and we want to further develop what we can do here in Cowra,” he said.
“We’re a not for profit charity, we need to be sustainable and need to go for grants, while being in the community because Cowra owns us as much as Grenfell or Young does.
“Music is one of those things that when times are tough it drops off, so we’ve got to try and get music to where the people are, which is the beauty of doing our outreach through St Raphael’s. We can’t thank them enough for having us.”
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