One full of joy – (echo) One full of joy
A happy place – (echo) A happy place
A friendly space – (echo) A friendly space
And in our school – (echo) and in our school
We all learn to grow (echo) We all learn to grow
(in unison) In faith and love, in peace and hope for the future in our lives.
Vs 1
We’re here to learn (echo) About God’s family (echo)
(Unison) To live our lives in good faith
We’re here to learn (echo) To live as friends (echo)
(Unison) To share our play and our happiness
And in our lives we’ll learn to live in peace and love – as one family – CH
Vs 2
Our teachers here (echo) And parents too (echo)
(Unison) give us our needs and help us through
By words and care (echo) Example too (echo)
(Unison) they share with us , knowledge and truth
And so throughout our town, our church, our school we grow – as one family – CH
Mark Bainbridge © 1990
St Mary’s School notes
This is my effort to create a joyful song for a school community. These are not always successfully adapted to other schools – but I thought I would be safe with ‘St.Marys’ as the title school! As long as the name of your school is not toooooooo long!! you should
be able to fit it in place of ‘St.Marys’ without too much trouble! I believe that the song could be adapted to a parish setting as well and therefore the church name would be substituted.
The words came about through a day we had where all children were asked their idea of what they thought made up a great school. These were then used in another activity that structured a poem to which was added the tune. It was a Process Writing approach to composing, going through a number of drafts until the final article was approved
The echoed parts are an easy way to introduce and learn the chorus. The actions for the chorus at the back of this booklet were developed in yet another activity where a whole range of actions we1e put forward by the children. The most appropriate were chosen and these are published here, but you could develop your own actions to the chorus. (and verses as well!)