Talented musical students at The Bourne Academy are hosting lockdown Rock Concerts online – Rockdown Sessions.

When the UK Government announced school closures and another national lockdown, The Bourne Academy’s music department decided that this would not stop musical performances for their students. The Academy was due to have held concert performances, but with social distancing measures still in place for the foreseeable future, the events have not been able to take place in the traditional sense, so following the success of The Academies previous online concerts in April & May of last year, they have two more wonderful performances via Facebook Live.

Students have once again been rehearsing and recording performances at home. The videos are then put together by Academy staff to create a concert; the previous concerts reached almost 1000 views in the first hour and led to many more engagements and positive comments from the Academy community.

‘Rockdown Sessions’ give a brilliant opportunity for students to continue developing their performance skills while in lockdown and a chance to share their work with families, staff and peers. The music department has been inundated with so many fantastic performance videos that the concert is taking place over two nights, Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11 February.

Head of Visual and Performing Arts, David Mastrocola says ‘’We are all incredibly proud of the students for taking part in what has been a very difficult time for all of us. Hopefully these concerts will give the students, staff, and their families, a degree of escapism for a couple of hours where they can enjoy watching themselves and their peers perform.’’

In light of National Lockdown and worldwide travel restrictions, The Bourne Academy has launched a virtual challenge to make the journey from Bournemouth to its partner school in Kenya. The aim is for staff and students, to clock up the 6040 mileage from Hadow Road in Bournemouth to Osiligi Obaya School in Kenya, using any mode of transport they wish.

‘Osiligi’ means hope, and the hope for this project is to bring us all a little closer together in a time when the world feels very disconnected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So far this term, staff and students have clocked up over 400 miles, passing Poole Ferry Terminal and major journey markers in France such as Cherbourg-Octeville, Nantes & La Rochelle. The journey is being plotted on a giant map in the Academy’s Reception, with regular updates on social media and via the Academy news bulletin to our whole community.

The Bourne Academy received a special 10 Year Anniversary congratulations from our partner in Kenya, Osiligi Obaya Primary School,l as this year The Bourne Academy is celebrating ten years since becoming an Academy. The Bournemouth school has been supporting the Osiligi Obaya Primary School in the Maasai Warrior community in Kenya since 2011, with the key objective to assist the community to become more economically active, helping them to help themselves, whilst not changing their beautiful culture. 

There have also been many fundraising drives over the years, most recently a Christmas Jumper MUFTI day and, in 2016-2017 raising £5000 to build a new teachers’ house called ‘The Bourne Academy House’.

Caroline Gobell, Business Director, commented: ‘We are absolutely delighted to be launching this new year challenge for our whole community to join in with.  The 6040 mile journey is inspiring us all in so many ways: chasing away the winter blues, bringing our community further together during a 2^nd national lockdown and raising awareness of our partner school, of whom we are extremely proud.  We are giving out various prizes at the end of this journey and so far there seems to be some very healthy competition between staff v students for the most mileage, or most unusual mode of transport!’.