PUPILS at a special school in Bournemouth celebrated the opening of their new music room after it was given a free transformation.

Staff, students, parents, grandparents, and governors enjoyed a concert in the new space at Linwood School. Community choir Local Vocals performed, along with pupils playing ukuleles.

Impressive new music technology, featuring sensors that pick up on movement to produce sounds, was also shown off to the audience.

The six-month project to refurbish the school’s music room was carried out by Nelson Lamb, of V Build, and Josie Holliday of Fabstract by Josie.

The pair painted a colourful mural on the walls of the classroom as part of its redecoration, at no cost to the school.

Julie Jeanes, executive head teacher, said she was “delighted with the outcome”.

“We’re very grateful for the work that Nelson and Josie have done. Our creative arts has developed significantly over the past couple of years, and that’s due to the inspiration of the creative arts team and their vision and passion.

“The music room was quite a dated room - it wasn’t very engaging or very bright, so now the students are engaged and focussed when they go in there, which is nice.”

Hannah Swarbrick, head of music technology, explained the benefits of new equipment the pupils will be using in lessons.

“We put in a bid to upgrade our Soundbeam 2 to a Soundbeam 6, which was granted. We now have an amazing piece of technology where the potential is unbelievable.

“You can perform music from a range of genres, with hundreds of different instrumental sounds.

It works using movement through invisible beams of light – it’s really clever. It’s of particular benefit to our pupils with physical disabilities, but I enjoy using it too.”

She added: “Victoria School have been really helpful to us in raising our knowledge of this technology.

“We need to meet students’ needs in a variety of ways, hence differentiating our use of technology as much as we would for learning in any other lesson.”

Josie said she got involved in the project to refurbish the music room after seeing an appeal for help by Nelson on Facebook.

“I just wanted to give something back. The children can really enjoy this room now, and it’s all about them.”