Lorna's inspiring WEA tutor story

Languages & Culture

An exceptional tutor helping others to find their voice again

Lorna teaches the WEA choir at the Nottingham Women’s Centre. Her work with the choir helps support women who have faced or are facing challenging situations in their lives. Lorna works hard to recover their voices, help them enjoy singing together and build their confidence.

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“Lorna has been teaching singing at the women's centre for some time now,” explains Lorinda from WEA Midlands region.

“Her learners often have difficult lives, and many different needs. Lorna has used her love of music and singing to empower the women to create a choir which now performs at local events, including Nottingham’s International Women's Day celebrations. The women have improved not only their singing, but their confidence too as being part of the choir.”

“I always try to choose songs for the choir that have got positive and empowering lyrics,” Lorna says. “We’ve been doing some more complicated material recently, and at first it put some learners off because they were a bit uncertain, but once they got the hang of it they were just blown away by what they’d achieved.”

Lorna stood by a bridge next to a lake with a duck in the water

“It’s great to see the look on a student’s face when they suddenly realise they can sing the high note, or that they can sing in harmony, it’s absolutely amazing. Recently we performed at a local festival, and some of the students that took part are the ones who said that they definitely weren’t going to perform in public, and then they were the ones standing at the front on the day, that’s fantastic to see.”

Lorna goes over and above the role of tutor to support the choir, including helping her students to embrace any new technology and build their digital skills, Lorinda explains: “Many of her singing students now use MP3s of their performances for Lorna and their peers to listen to.”

“All in all Lorna is an exceptional tutor,” Lorinda says. “She puts in so many hours to make sure her students get the best ever experience and is always looking for ways to improve.”

Video transcript: Lorna

My name is Lorna Poole I run the WEA choir at Nottingham Women's Center and I've won the inspirational tutor award.

So I actually started off with the WEA teaching IT classes, From there I went on to teach creative writing but my real passion lies with music and so the WEA offered me the chance to run the choir at Nottingham Women's Center and I jumped at that opportunity,

Since then I've ended up teaching a whole range of other music courses for the WEA which is yeah really fantastic.

I always try to choose songs for the choir that have got positive and empowering lyrics. So I think that the students want to come and they want to sing those songs.

I think the fact that we've been doing some more complicated material recently at first it put the students off because they were a bit uncertain, but then once they got the hang of it they were just blown away by what they'd achieved, and I think it's just great to see the look on a student's face when they suddenly realize they can sing the high note or that they can sing in harmony. It is absolutely amazing.

I'm just proud of seeing the achievements of the students lately we've been trying some quite complicated songs and a lot of the students when we first start learning them they're all thinking, oh what's this I can't sing that it's too difficult, but then a few weeks later you see them just yet again just belting them out, hitting the high notes, harmonizing.

Then recently we actually performed at a local festival called Netherfest and some of the students that took part were the ones who said they definitely weren't going to perform in public and then they were the ones standing at the front on the day so that's absolutely fantastic to see.

I was actually really blown away when I got the email saying that I'd won the award because I wasn't expecting it at all. So yeah, it means a lot to me so I actually did get quite emotional when I read the email and I think I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the students as well, because it was um down to their amazing feedback which they gave me at the end of the classes, so yeah thank you.