Maidstone special needs school hosts music festival for students

Woodstock 2025 gave children the opportunity to experience live music.   Henry Luck reports...

Transcript

00:00Rolling out the red carpet for its students and music talent across the UK and beyond,

00:06Five Acre Wood and Maidstone has celebrated the end of the school year by bringing the magic of

00:13Hollywood to its grounds and is an event that's been taking place for 15 years now.

00:20Five Acre Wood and Maidstone have brought the magic and excitement of a music festival

00:26to its students. Woodstock 2025 was created to allow students to experience the excitement of a

00:34music festival, something many are likely to face challenges witnessing because of neurodivergence.

00:43This is our annual music festival where we bring all the elements of a traditional music festival

00:49to Five Acre Wood School which enables our pupils who are described as having profound,

00:54severe and complex learning needs to access a real deal music festival.

00:58However, not even a sudden downpour was enough to stop everyone from singing in the rain.

01:05It's brilliant, I mean when it first started we had a very small affair where we had children

01:14from local schools singing on the stage and it's grown and grown and grown to the size it is now

01:21where we have fun fairs where we have famous people come and sing and lots of different things for

01:27our young people to do. What's your favourite thing? Mine is probably all the singers that come

01:33come down and sing for us. Mine is probably a bit of everything. My favourite one is probably the fun fairs.

01:43And of course, any music festival needs its supporting cast and Five Acre Wood had plenty of volunteers up to the task.

01:52Five Acre Wood is really important so we live in the area, always knowing it's here. The work they do

01:59for the community is absolutely amazing. It's definitely the area's largest school that caters for the

02:04children with advanced special needs. Really glad to help it and give back to the community in some way.

02:10Now that a rap has been called for this school year at Five Acre Wood, they hope this music concert

02:18is an Oscar worthy performance. Henry Luck for KMTV in Maidstone.