Sparkwell All Saints Primary School
Composers and Singers
- CLASS Robins (Years 3&4)
- SCHOOL Sparkwell All Saints Primary, Plymouth, Devon, England
- HONOURS One of us did a Christmas show and another one of us passed a violin exam
- MINERVA SCIENTIFICA PROJECT Voices for the Future – Mary Anning, 2022
All images on this page courtesy of the school. This page also includes quotes from the children gathered from data collected after the project.
Scientific Connections
We had a lot of fun making clay artwork with Jack
Robins have been doing lots of science including some fun adventures out of school:
- We went to Plympton Academy to do science in their labs
- Some of us went to the Energy from Waste plant
- Clean our Patch came into school to talk to us about plastic pollution
On our Mary Anning project wth Electric Voice Theatre we learnt:
- Mary Anning lived in Lyme Regis
- Her dad died when she was 12!
- About a fossil called a pterosaur that was 200 million years old
- Mary Anning carried a basket and a hammer
- A dog called Tray helped Mary Anning look for fossils
Compositions
The Pterosaur in our song was called Pterolita. She might have looked like this.
Title: Mary Anning and Pterolita the Pterosaur
Scientist: MARY ANNING
Composed by: Y3&4 Robins class, Sparkwell Al Saints Primary School, Plymouth, Devon
Written in: October 2022
Arranged by: Frances M Lynch & Herbie Clarke
For: Voices, piano and electronics
Film by: Jack Sewell
Performed by: the composers
First Performed: Released online January 2023
“Who was Pterolita? When did she live? What did she do every day?”
The answers to these questions are told in this noisy story about a “ferocious flying dragon” which begins 200 million years ago. There’s a lot of music, mud, minerals, chisels, hammers, brushes, bones and poo along the way and you’ll find out about many different fossils from Mary Anning herself. Did you know “she was just like us” and so are the scientists working on Pterolita’s fossil in the lab today.
”Crick Crack Crick Crack….we put together her bones but they made a funny shape!”
Imagining a Jurassic world
Education
We were surprised at how good our clay artwork was
Thank you Jack for helping us make our pterosaur skeleton artwork
Our teacher is Miss Lovick. We do lots of music at school, including singing and ukulele. Some of us also have private music lessons in violin, guitar and piano. One of us wants to be a singing equestrian teacher.
My dinosaur artwork looks fantastic
Occupations
After the project more than a third of us are thinking about becoming scientists and some want to be singers and composers – there’s even one who would like to be a singing equestrian teacher!
Musical Highlights
It pushed my voice up again and it felt nice. Singing makes me confident and proud.
Some of us have performed in dance and drama shows, others have passed music exams on violin, piano and guitar – one of us played violin in a show.
We enjoyed imagining what Pterolita might have looked like
Did You Know?
- When Mary Anning’s Pterosaur was transported to the museum nobody mentioned that she found it
- That it takes for ever to chip a fossil out of the stone
- We found the fossil poo bit in the song funny
- We were surprised when we saw how good our fossil was
- We thought that the voices were a bit strange and funny
An Inspiring Woman
Music: Frances M Lynch – She helped us make our MEGASONG! We wrote thank you letters and sent them to her….
Science:
Professor Sarah Gilbert – She discovered the Covid 19 vaccine
Mary Anning because she found really interesting fossils
Mary Anning loved fossil hunting
Emma Bernard –
I especially enjoyed when the Palaeontologist talked about being a Palaeontologist.
The lady from the Natural History museum told us a lot of interesting facts