Ainslie School music teacher Jess Copeman is one of four finalists from around Australia in the ARIA Music Teacher Award, the news delivered to her in person in the classroom by acclaimed performer Kate Miller-Heidke.
The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) announced the finalists on Thursday, with the winner to be revealed during the ARIA Awards broadcast on Channel Nine on November 15.
The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) announced the finalists on Thursday, with the winner to be revealed during the ARIA Awards broadcast on Channel Nine on November 15.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 I'm Kate Miller-Heidke and I've journeyed to Canberra to meet a music teacher who is
00:05 at the cutting edge of music education.
00:08 Well done!
00:10 Jess Copeman has transformed the program at Ainslie School to bring the latest in music
00:15 teaching to all of her students.
00:18 One, two, three, four.
00:23 From collaborating with orchestras, universities, research bodies, as well as running music
00:28 workshops for other teachers, Jess is doing it all.
00:31 Hello, oh my god, that sounds amazing.
00:34 I'm so sorry to interrupt, my name's Kate and I've come here from Melbourne to tell
00:39 you Jess that you have been nominated for a Telstra ARIA Music Teacher Award, which
00:44 means she's one of the best music teachers in the whole country.
00:53 It's a huge honour to be nominated.
00:54 Well here you go.
00:55 So you guys, do you think she should win?
00:56 The music industry has played a major part in my development and upbringing, so to actually
01:08 be nominated at such a big level is just a phenomenal feeling.
01:15 Music before I came to Ainslie was a single music lesson once a week.
01:19 We also had a band program, but it was only for 23 students.
01:24 And so my main aim was to equalise the playing field for every student.
01:29 Let's do our piece and Kate gets to do it.
01:37 Every child learns a pitched instrument.
01:43 And then by the time they hit year 5/6, they're able to play in our wonderful orchestra, what
01:48 we call our imperfect orchestra because it's not traditional.
01:51 We have brass and strings, ukuleles which are not traditionally in an orchestra, and
01:57 we don't have any wind section and we do have a percussion section.
02:02 Most schools only have a specific band with maybe 16 people in it, where at our school
02:06 we have about, I think it's about 110 people playing band.
02:12 Jess has made sure every student gets the opportunity to play.
02:16 That was really good.
02:18 Well done.
02:19 I'm not very good at band, but I do enjoy doing it.
02:25 Music at Ainslie is not a standalone subject.
02:27 It's embedded in all subject areas.
02:30 We have worked with staff across the school, upskilling them, providing new knowledge on
02:36 how to actually implement music in everyday classrooms.
02:39 And we've got everybody joining in now.
02:42 Explain it to Kate.
02:44 This is the lesson in robotics and what is normally called science, technology, engineering
02:49 and mathematics.
02:50 However, at Ainslie, students code a robot to a song.
02:55 Look at you go.
02:58 Wow.
02:59 And then they make their own dance moves to move along with their robot.
03:03 We use music as a driver of school improvement and Jess has helped us to explore neurologically
03:11 what happens when we are using music and making music.
03:16 Through embedding music across the curriculum, we've had a major impact on student mental
03:21 health, student engagement.
03:24 We've seen significant growth through their literacy and numeracy, so reading and writing
03:29 and maths.
03:30 We've also connected in with research institutes in creating apps and informing research so
03:36 that other schools can do what we're doing.
03:39 It's making a better world for these little humans.
03:42 Jess has managed to infiltrate the whole culture of this school with music.
03:53 As soon as you walk in the entranceway, there's a massive grand piano and you walk into every
03:57 classroom and there's an instrument somewhere and I love that.
04:01 The reason why I even have the chance to play ukulele is because of Jess.
04:09 Jess is just a really nice teacher and is great at teaching music.
04:14 When I'm feeling sad, she helps me and she does a lot of awesome stuff for us.
04:20 Robot dancing.
04:22 Jess knows that music can be a shaper of people and communities and she has brought that into
04:29 our school.
04:33 Music education is at the foundation of what it means to be human.
04:37 Who wouldn't love coming to work every single day and working with these little people?
04:43 I have the best job in the whole wide world.
04:47 Watching these kids with Jess leaves me in no doubt that she's changing their lives.
04:54 You know, one kid said, "I can't say what I like about Jess because there's just too
04:59 much to say."
05:00 I mean, it's just, it's so heartwarming and it's gorgeous.
05:04 [Music]
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