At Matthew Flinders Anglican College on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, our whole Primary School from P-6 have been learning the song in class music time.  We have had lots of fun singing and working out actions to go with our performance. Our Primary School is going to all join together on the 1st September in our Primary Pavilion to sing and move. It is exciting to know that there are more than 1,500 schools all around Australia singing this same song at the same time!

Maree Coote - Music teacher, Matthew Flinders Anglican College, QLD

We are a small, but rapidly growing, P-12 independent school.  With only one specialist music teacher, we have managed to ensure the entire school has learned “We’ve Got The Music”, and now rehearse it every Friday morning after our weekly Chapel service (the Early Years classes sing it every morning!).  We have, of course, changed it somewhat to suit ourselves:  our Year 11 class has “remixed” it to make it slightly faster and a little funkier.  They have added a saxophone solo section (played by one of our Year 9 students), an introductory rap (written by Year 7 and edited by Year 10), and – wait for it – the final 2 choruses are now in a fast Gospel style!  It will be led by our College Vocal Group; and the Year 11 class is also “The Band”.  Not bad going for a class of 3 students!

Brigitte Fox, Music Coordinator, Lakeside Lutheran College, VIC

Grovely is a small school so our numbers are not hugely impressive!  The whole school (325 students) will be attending.  We will also have the combined schools band (Grovely SS, Mitchelton SHS and Mitchelton SS) attending to accompany the singing of the song. We hope to have members from our local Community band attend and play with the students. Our school's Junior and Senior Choirs will be leading the singing.  We will put out an invitation to our parent community inviting them to attend and join in the celebration.

Annie Rossouw, Music Coordinator, Grovely State School, QLD

Our school is excited to be participating in Music...count us in for the 5th Year. On the 1st September our whole school population of aprox 460 children and all staff will participate together by either singing or performing on an instrument. Members of our school community have also been invited to attend. Musical groups involved in the performance are:

Yr 6/7 Festival Choir

Yr 4/5 Supersingers

M.P.S. Band

Bandboppers (first year on band instrument)

M.P.S. String Orchestra

String Band

Junior Primary Recorder

and the M.P.S." Music Count Us In" Combined Voices.

I have attached a few photos of our rehearsals during this week. This is the link to our school web-site information page about music..count us in for 2011.

http://music2011.marryatvilleps.wikispaces.net/Music...count+us+in

Jan O'Connell, R-7 Music Teacher, Marryatville Primary School, Kensington, SA

Regarding schools performing for Music Count Us In in a different way or out of the ordinary, here is a run down of what is happening at BayView State School for 2011 - Music Count Us In. BayView State School was opened in 2010.  As we are only a new school, we are building the foundations to establish 'The Arts' within our school. Music Count Us In - is an excellent opportunity to showcase Music within the school and the community. As sport always seems to have a major importance within education and a lot of federal funding goes towards sport, it was ironic that a Sports Day Carnival was scheduled for 1st September, 2011.

I must admit that it was disappointing at the time, but then I had a fantastic idea.  How can we make this year a special one for Music Count Us In?  In the week of 5th September, BayView State School is having a 'Creative Arts' Week, where all musicians from the Band, String Ensemble and Choirs will be performing in the 'Blame it on the Boogie' Music Showcase.  To finish the week, BVSS students will have the opportunity to see a world class drummer, Grant Collins, perform his show 'The Power of One'.  So, why not incorporate Music Count Us In with our 'Creative Arts' Week? What a finale!

After Grant's show, all students will perform 'We've Got the Music'.  As we are only a new school and establishing the Music Program, we are not quite ready for our Concert Band and String Ensemble to perform at this level.  Instead, we have the whole school (400 students) involved with the Preps to Year 4's singing and moving to actions.  Year 5's with Cup Percussion. Year 6/7's with Drum Stick percussion, while Grant Collins performs on his $40 000 Drum Kit.

Leah Olsson, Music Specialist, Bayview State School, QLD

This year we have our instrumentalists performing the song, a group of year 6 and 7s leading the singing, and the whole school performing the song with actions.  The instrumentalists are ALL volunteers and we have almost ALL our instrumentalists volunteering approximately 80-100 instrumentalists and sounding fantastic!!  We will be holding it in our new school hall at 11:30 on the 1st September as requested!

Naomi Miller, Music Specialist, Ferny Grove State School, QLD

Just letting you know that Yarrilee State School (Hervey Bay QLD) 670 students is coming together with over 100 students who learn guitar at school with me, with the coolest dance actions to perform on Thursday 1st September. BUT that is just the prelude to the next night where we are holding our Bi-Annual Whole School Arts Night , with every child in the school singing, playing and dancing with costumes. The theme this year is "Rockin' all over the World" We have preps doing the Beatles, year 1 ABBA all the way through the Jackson 5, Blues Brothers and Queen. The Finale song, where all the children come together to sing is MCUI "We've got the Music"  Then the icing on the cake is the STAFF song and dance. Just letting you know that MCUI helps the whole school focus on what is always another exciting thing to do in Music. Thank you for your time and efforts. Thank you to the government for supporting/funding something so precious and worthwhile. Please pass on Yarrilee's enthusiam and passion for this program and all things musical. We consider ourselves a "Music School"!

Leanne J. Rostedt, Classroom Music Specialist, Yarrilee State School, QLD

Jilliby Public School is proud to participate in this wonderful musical event.  Our school has organised a wonderful morning of music and are lucky enough to have special guests, Frank Potter – School Education Director, Hunter Region, Wyong Shire Council Mayor’s wife, Mrs Eaton and Councillor Lisa Matthews representing Wyong Shire Council, Ms Nadine Manion, Director of Elite Vocal Academy attending to support our school.  We have a music raffle that will be held on the morning with donations from Elite Vocal Academy, Gosford Music Centre, Guy Sebastian, Kasey Chambers, Adam Harvey, Amber Lawrence and many more talented Australian artists who have been kind enough to donate merchandise to our school.  All money raised through our raffle will be put into more music resources for our wonderful students.  We can’t wait for 1 September, 2011 and will send photos of the day!!! Good Luck every one.

Sharon Barr, Music Co-Ordinator, Jilliby Public School, Jilliby NSW

Hi there. We are ‘old hands’ at doing Music Count Us In and are well down the track of planning for our big celebration on September 1^st when we come together in the school Gym. This year our school rock band and our Grade 5 and 6 singers will lead us on mic. Also planned is to have our school dance team lead the school with some actions. Our school dance team is the Victorian finalist for this year to compete in the National titles in Tasmania on 20^th August. A new government school, Aitken Creek Primary School, has opened up in our rapidly developing suburb of Craigieburn this year with about 90 students. We have invited them to come to our school and join with us as we sing the song. We are encouraging them to register and have offered assistance in the form of myself going there to help teach the song.

Roslyn Pritchard, Music Teacher & Co-ordinator of Instrumental Music, Willmott Park Primary School, Craigieburn, VIC

Year 9 started learning the song this week and putting their own rhythmic spin on it. Student Maifono offered the different rhythmic pattern in the verse which we are going to refine over the coming weeks. Year 9 will be supporting all of year 7 who will be singing and playing glockenspiel. Of course this is a work in progress. This iphone recording (uploaded to the website as an MP3) only has student performing with no help from staff. This recording was made so the second year 9 class was on the same page. My Year 9 class said "wouldn't it be great if other classes posted their progress up to so we could see how we are going in comparison" (Great idea! Check out the homepage and next e-blast – MCUI HQ).

Our 7P class (30 students) with their music teacher Michelle Hsiao (also their homeroom teacher and year adviser) are starting to learn the verse and chorus [and also] learn the glockenspiel part. All year 7 (180 students) are learning the vocals and glockenspiel and Year 9 (60 students) are learning the band parts. We will be putting all together on MCUI DAY!

Also from Fairvale HS...

It's official! Australia's got talent boys group ‘Capree’ are locked in and confirmed for this years "Music count us in" at Fairvale High. We are in the process of working in with our primary schools again and will also be showcasing our year 12 music and dance students on the day. We have had to move our concert to the Monday 29th August due to various schedules and booking availabilities.

Greg Thwaites, Head Teacher Performing Arts and Languages, Fairvale High School, NSW