What A Wonderful World soundtracks UK-first languages festival

Timeless classic What A Wonderful World will bring together thousands of young people from across Sunderland as an annual celebration of learning through languages encourages children to sing, play and sign.

With registration for 2025’s Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages open now, attention turns to four key projects bringing cultural diversity to life.

Shining a light on inclusivity, and designed to give young people a voice, the four free creative multilingual projects — running from January to March — embrace music, art and writing to engage children aged seven to 18 in schools, community schools and groups across the region.

Georgina Biddle helms the ever-popular festival song project — Sing, Play, Sign: What A Wonderful World will see schools across the North East perform the Louis Armstriong favourite in a range of languages.

“The festival song fosters inclusiveness and allows children and young people from diverse communities across the North East to connect with the lyrics and emotions more deeply,” said Georgina, Senior Specialist, Music Partnership North (MPN) Newcastle.

“The different translations broaden the song’s reach for our multicultural region, inviting participants from various cultural backgrounds to feel a shared connection to the music.

“It showcases the festival’s cultural respect and celebration, enhancing the global appeal.”

Contributors from diverse language communities locally, nationally and internationally have helped to translate What A Wonderful World into 25 different languages. A British Sign Language (BSL) version is also available.

“MPN Newcastle invites children and young people across the North East to sing, sign, play and perform the festival song in the languages that they speak at home, in the community or are learning,” added Georgina.

“Videos of their performances are combined to produce a regional, multilingual version of the song which becomes a centrepiece for Express Yourself.”

The poetic writing-focused Mother Tongue Other Tongue, Weaving Friendship creative challenge and Language Calligrams Celebration complete this year’s diverse line-up of showpiece festival projects.

But scores of additional activities, challenges, in-person events and online sessions — all free to attend and supported by a series of resources and toolkits — underpin a festival on course to reach tens of thousands of North East children by the end of its 2025 run.

“All four main projects are ongoing from January 8 until late March so schools have plenty of time to get their school or community group involved,” said festival lead and CEO of International Newcastle, Declan Baharini.

“All of these projects can be done across the whole school or community school but also with schools’ international partners.

“They all come with teaching packs and resources to make it easy for schools to deliver in classes and for community schools and groups to participate.

“The project activities can be done in any language so they’re multilingual and multicultural.”

Participating in the projects can help schools progress through the levels of the International School Award (ISA).

“To go further than Foundation Certificate level with the ISA, there’s a requirement to do a whole-school activity with an international partner,” explained Declan.

“Express Yourself: North East Festival of Languages is set up to help schools achieve that higher standard.”

This year’s projects support Schools of Sanctuary awards and activities are captured in the shape of a shareable song video, digital anthologies and a public exhibition in Newcastle.

Mother Tongue Other Tongue invites children to share poems and songs in their home language or to write an original piece of poetry in a language they are learning.

Weaving Friendship encourages the creation and submission of colourful weavings with messages of friendship written in different languages as part of a celebratory Friendship Trees installation.

And the Calligrams Celebration project showcases calligrams in any language (other than English) based on words children already know.

For further information on the 2025 Express Yourself: Festival Of North East Languages and to register for activities from January visit expressyourselfne.com