School of Rock starting up at Prince Charles Public School

Craig Bakay | Jan 24, 2018

Get ready to rock, Prince Charles.

That’s as in School of Rock at Prince Charles Public School in Verona.

SK-1 teacher Lee Casement has secured a $2,360 grant from the Limestone Learning Foundation and he’s using it to get gear. Now all he needs is some students to rock ’n’ roll.

“I’m teaching SK-1 so I haven’t got to meet many of the junior and intermediate students yet,” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll take a leadership role.”

Casement, a bass player by trade, takes his inspiration from the Jack Black movie, School of Rock where Black takes on a teaching assignment and ends up forming his students into a rock band.

“There’s actually a method to the madness of teaching kids rock music,” he said. “First of all, this is not a music class per se,” he said. “It’s an extracurricular activity featuring music and we’re not teaching music, we’re teaching songs. And because it’s rock, you can get dirty loud, and that can cover up a lot of mistakes which means the kids can learn quickly and sound decent, which goes a long way towards self-confidence.”

To that end, He plans to feature a repertoire of The Clash, The Ramones, and Pink Floyd.

And Casement knows what he’s talking about. This will be his third School of Rock having done similar programs at Tamworth Elementary and Perth Road Public School.

“What have I learned at those two previous attempts?” he said. “Well, I’ve learned how to write a grant application.”

“But I’ve also learned things like getting smaller keyboards and shortscale guitars. And things like tuning a ukulele to open D so that the less advanced kids can strum along and have some fun.”

He’s also learned to recruit help whenever it presents itself.

“At Perth Road, custodian Don Pollard is a drummer,” he said. “He jumped in a loved it.

“Here, french teacher Kevin Bailey told me ‘I play a little keyboard,’ so . . .” In the past, he’s done Neil Young, Nirvana and even Taylor Swift (“a little rockier version but sometimes you have to meet the kids half-way”) with the students.

“This time, we’ll have to see how it goes,” he said. “I like the idea of gender swapping the vocals on covers.

“We’ll probably do an assembly in March and maybe a concert.”

At Perth Road, he had enough students for four bands, including one allgirl rock band that kept their band, She Rock, going after they left the school.

But even if it’s only a power trio at Prince Charles, it’s worth his time.

“I’ve always wanted something that will bring kids together as a team, with a goal in mind,” he said.