Choral Tracks

How do you get a teenage choir from a school in Keynsham to an intergenerational singing event in Bath? By train of course!

Platform was delighted to be approached by Ingrid McLean, Head of Music at Wellsway and Director of Music for Futura Learning Partnership, a multi academy trust in the West of England, spanning from Bridgwater through to Clevedon, Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset. A strong advocate for music education and cultural enrichment, part of her mission is to facilitate opportunities for students to participate in the wider world of music beyond their own setting. But, as any state school will tell you, this inevitably raises the issue of transport costs. Cue Platform!

Ellie (one of Platform’s team of Learning Development Officers) went into Wellsway School to facilitate a pre-travel rail safety and confidence workshop with 15 Year 7 and 8 students and was reunited with them the following day at Keynsham Station where they were tasked with putting their training into action. All the students aced Ellie’s quiz of the key rail safety points they had covered in the workshop. They also enjoyed watching the many fast trains that pass through their local station – well back behind the yellow line of course! The curiosity they had shown in the workshop continued at the station, with some great questions around level crossings and top train speeds in other countries. They also made the most of the free newspapers on offer, settling down in the waiting area on Platform 2 and getting stuck into the Metro crossword.

Their behaviour on board the train was excellent and, after a pleasant walk from Bath Spa Station, Ellie dropped them off at the Pavilion for a special, one-off intergenerational singing event with ‘Golden Oldies’, organised by Grenville Jones. The students had already learnt one of the songs on the programme and learnt others while they were there. On Ingrid’s invitation, Ellie returned quarter of an hour early to collect them in order to watch the students performing a wonderful medley of songs from ‘Mary Poppins’. Photo courtesy of: Golden Oldies

For the return leg, everyone was in good spirits already thanks to the joy of singing, but a slightly earlier finish meant they were back at Bath Spa Station in plenty of time to sample the refreshment facilities on Platform 1, which went down very well. A proper day out! As luck would have it, they also happened to witness station staff assessing whether they could safely retrieve something from the track – one of the teaching points from Platform’s rail safety workshop and the subject of one of their new myth-busting films.

With the cost of hiring a coach often the reason schools are unable to engage with events like this one, the Platform team was delighted to have enabled this trip to happen by providing free rail safety training and free travel, courtesy of GWR.

“Platform enabled us to take part in a great day of singing. The free travel was hugely appreciated. The safety aspect of the training prior to our travel was also sensitively handled and delivered in a playful manner to ensure students remained engaged. We anticipated this was simply going to be a form of transport to get us to the event but the training delivered by Ellie was engaging and genuinely informative for our students. The students really enjoyed the train experience and it also enabled some interesting conversations between students regarding environmental ways they may travel in the future. Communication prior to the training and event were excellent. My thanks to everyone involved.“
Ingrid McLean, Head of Music at Wellsway and Director of Music for Futura Learning Partnership

“It was a real pleasure to spend time in the company of Ms McLean and her fantastic students. It was clear they were excited enough to be going off to Bath to spend their day singing, but the fact that they travelled there by train added a whole extra layer of fun to the proceedings. It was also a perfect opportunity for me to promote rail travel as a safe, sustainable and feasible transport option as they continue to navigate the world and consider the opportunities available to them, from further education and careers to discovering new places. And the Mary Poppins medley was a delight!”
Ellie Swain, Learning Development Officer for Platform