Cappabue song is the toast of the ‘Schoolovision’

THOSE eco-rapping students from Cappabue National School have added another feather to their musical caps after their climate change rap, ‘One Small Change’ won a primary school’s version of the Eurovision song Contest last weekend.

The two-teacher school with 23 pupils near Kealkil represented Ireland in the 12th Schoolovision event where they faced stiff competition from schools from  countries including Poland, Finland, Germany and Norway and picked up a remarkable ‘douze points’ from 13 countries.

The winning song was revealed last Friday, the day before the Eurovision Song Contest was due to take place.

However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic this was replaced with Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light event this year.

Even An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tweeted about their success and when referencing the Eurovision Song Contest last weekend, he said: ‘I doubt any will be as good as the kids from Cappabue National School in Cork, who won schoolovision. You did the country proud.’

Speaking to The Southern Star, school principal Norma Healy said they are over the moon to have won the song contest.

‘We were told last Friday morning that we had won and we picked up 188 points, beating Norway (150) into second place, which was fantastic news,’ said Norma.

‘A text went out to all the parents and pupils to let them know of our success. It’s the honour of winning this too and also what was important is that it was voted by the teachers and schools from 19 countries who obviously loved the song.’

Norma said the school were invited by the German organiser of the Schoolovision to submit an entry this year.

‘He had seen our video online and said that they had no entry for Ireland and that he would love to put us in the competition. I think he said that they haven’t had an Irish entry in a number of years.’

‘Obviously with the Covid-19 pandemic things haven’t ran as smoothly for the organisers this year as many schools across Europe are closed so many would not have had a chance to prepare their entries.’

Meanwhile, the video for ‘One Small Change’ has already been viewed over 100,000 times on their YouTube channel.

Just last month they were announced as one of 10 global winners in the 202 Global Recylcing Day #RecyclingHeroes competition, picking up a $1,000 for their efforts and their song also went on release across numerous platforms.

Norma describes the song as the ‘gift that keeps on giving’ as Creative Ireland has commissioned the school to make another song and video about creativity in general

‘We will be getting Garry from GMC Beats to help us with this over the next few weeks and it will all have to be done remotely due to the schools being closed. The students are already excited about this new project and are eager to get started.’