Jewell Elementary School music teacher Kathy Woodford leads students in singing the school song at a monthly assembly at the school last week in Bend.

When Kathy Woodford was interviewed to be the next music teacher at Jewell Elementary School in Bend, she was asked how she would contribute to fostering school spirit.

“I paused and then I said, ‘How about a school song?’” Woodford said. “When I was thinking about how to spend the first few weeks before school, I decided, why not actually deliver?”

Woodford moved to Bend in January from Colorado with her three children — ages 5, 7 and 9 — and her husband after he got a new job in Redmond. She had taught music for seven years but has taken the last eight years off to focus on her kids.

“I like the creative side of teaching, and I’m always looking for ways to keep it fresh for me,” Woodford said. “This song helped with that, especially as I was feeling like a first-year teacher again after all this time.”

While Woodford wrote the lyrics to Jewell’s new school song, the music is borrowed from a piece by the Somali-Canadian recording artist K’naan entitled “Wavin’ Flag.” The song became an international hit as the promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

“It was a song my family would listen to while cleaning the house,” Woodford said. “It has a good beat, so the kids like it, and they would always request it. I think it has a good message too, which I liked.”

K’Naan grew up in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital and largest city, but his family fled to Canada when a civil war erupted between the nation’s military government and various clan-based groups in 1991.

“The lyrics are pretty deep, though they only used little snippets for the soccer promotions,” Woodford said. “When I changed the words, I looked at his a lot, as they are pretty strong. We were doing a character week, teaching kids about rules and how to be a good friend and I tried to put that in. I also put in classroom and hallway behavior goals because I wanted to talk about components of their own world.”

Woodford said that teaching the students a school song has been a good way to “sucker them in to a new teacher.” She has also taught the students American Sign Language and basic dance moves to go along with the song.

“I didn’t want people to just sit and sing, I wanted it to be active,” Woodford said. “Not everyone is a singer, but most kids can move, and I think it will help engage English learners or those who can’t yet memorize.”

At the end of a school-wide performance of the song, the whole student body performs the wave.

“We actually forgot it today,” Woodford said Oct. 4. “I went over to the principal and told her, ‘I think I know why everyone is being so noisy.’”

Jewell Elementary School song

Lyrics by Kathy Woodford

Give you friendship

Give you kindness

Give compassion

Take me higher

We’re the champions, of the world now

We’re the future

Make you feel proud

In our classrooms, we are learning

Gaining knowledge, understanding

In our hallways, we are smiling

We are happy, give high fives now

Singing forever young, singing songs underneath the sun

Let’s rejoice in the beautiful day

And together at the end of the day

We all say

We are the Jaguars, we are so strong now

We will work harder, right here at Jewell School

At Jewell School

At Jewell School

At Jewell School