Each of the primary schools had a series of creative workshops including photography, printmaking, drama and songwriting, and visits to explore and record their feelings about Anglia Square. They also had oral history workshops with BBC Voices and subsequently interviewed local community members.
The children wrote song lyrics, poems and thoughts about the area which were compiled by Charlie Caine and formed into a song. Once the lyrics were complete the children worked in groups around the piano with Charlie, to collaboratively compose the music. Each song had an individual theme and particular focus that made it specific to the feelings of the children who worked together to write it.
Year 3 children at Angel Road Junior explored Anglia Square through personification, picking out the parts of the Square that are important to them, including the clock, the empty cinema, and reflecting on what the Square might say if it could only tell us what it remembers. This makes Knocking Me Down is a highly personal song.
By Duncan Joseph
