Revision Songs – simple to do

This was presented at Teachmeet Havering 2009…

Every Summer before GCSE exams you get a couple of weeks when you need to be revising. Students minds are not filled with thoughts of exam preparation but thoughts of leaving school (some for good) and the days get longer and warmer. It can be a very hard time for lessons to be productive even though it’s arguably the most important time of year. Last year one of my year 11 classes had a number of students blessed with musical talent. The idea of creating revision songs popped into my head. I asked a couple of students to bring in their guitars next lesson and I brought in some lyrics (see Data Capture song below). 20 minutes later two guys Aden and Sean put together a tune – we got our cheap microphone headset up, loaded up audacity and recorded this…

Data Capture Song


Data Capture Song Lyrics (pdf)

You could use any programme to record but we used Audicity which is free and simple. Jose Picardo gives a great introduction to podcasting and audacity here, I’ve used his explanation for staff training.

As I said we didn’t use any special hardware – just a £1 headset microphone and PC. After this I had a request from the students for a revision song that fitted to Fields of Gold . I sat down at home and wrote the following lyrics which the 2 guys then recorded.

Fields of Data

Fields of Data Lyrics (pdf)

It’s easy, fun, and a great way to revise. Of course you could use songs for all ages and subjects not just for revision. If you’ve any good examples do leave them in the comments.

Finally in my enthusiasm I bought www.revisionsongs.com but haven’t had time to do anything with it. If anyone would like to collaborate or take it over for a good cause let me know – it would be amazing to have a youtube style website of revision songs for students.

Addendum: Thanks to Anthony Evans from Redbridge who has posted a video of my presentation on his blog – you can watch it below.