Staff at a Fife school keep pupils smiling during lockdown with uplifting video
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Class teachers, principal and learning support teachers, managerial and office staff all feature in the humorous video which shows them singing, ‘playing guitars’ and dancing - using various props - along to the popular Queen hit ‘I Want To Break Free’ – with all the clips brought together through the power of editing.
Claire Keith, who teaches primary six pupils at the school, came up with the idea.
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Hide AdShe said: “I wanted to bring a smile to people’s faces with this video. We are trying to teach online just now but a lot of it is just words on a screen so the idea was to show faces and let the kids see everyone they are used to seeing every single day.


“There have been a few schools posting videos for pupils, just silly little videos or ones with messages and we discussed what we could do as a staff. We like to do things that are a bit silly and out there so we agreed on a song that would suit for the current circumstances, so we went for I want to break free.
“Everyone was then given a line or a part in the song and they came up with their own little thing that they wanted to do.
“It worked really well. When I was editing it together I thought it was really amazing, given the fact there wasn’t a lot of detailed planning put into it. We just agreed to be silly and do something that would bring a bit of positivity during this dark time for the kids.”
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Hide AdClaire explained that she wanted to do something to lift everyone’s spirits following the news that Kirkcaldy nurse Shannon Napier, who was a former pupil at Fair Isle Primary, had passed away.
She said everyone was feeling a bit down after hearing about Shannon, so she put the idea out there at the start of the week to see if she could try and cheer people up a little bit.
“I then got videos sent to me from staff over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I put it all together yesterday (Thursday) so it was a quick turnaround. It took me about an hour and a half to edit it but it all came together really well.”
Claire added: “The feedback has been amazing. Parents have said the kids have all been giggling away at it. On our teams app the pupils have been saying they love it and that they were missing everyone as a result of watching it.
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Hide Ad“A lot of the teachers had said to me that they were really stepping out their comfort zone and probably wouldn’t normally like to go in front of a camera and be silly, but the sole reason they were doing it was to put a smile on the kids’ faces and afterwards, they were absolutely delighted with it.”
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