Your Students Are Waiting For Their Song
Every School Has a Song
Imagine a song that you can play over your intercom. A song your students sing in the hallways without being asked. A song that becomes part of your school culture. That’s what happens when a school finds its song. Rik helps schools find theirs.
Why it works
Your students come from different backgrounds, speak different languages, and carry different stories. While traditional SEL programs offer valuable frameworks, music creates something worksheets can’t: a shared voice. A song they helped write captures who they are and what they stand for. One that still plays on the intercom for years afterwards.
What principals say
“Denetia School had a magical week with Rik Leaf. His music resonated with positivity, teamwork and lifting each other up, raising the spirits of our students. The week was not only fun and energetic, it was healing, inspiring, and deeply meaningful.”
Graham Muncaster
Principal, Denetia School · Lower Post, BC
“Denetia School had a magical week with Rik Leaf. His music resonated with positivity, teamwork and lifting each other up, raising the spirits of our students. The week was not only fun and energetic, it was healing, inspiring, and deeply meaningful.”
Graham Muncaster
Principal, Denetia School · Lower Post, BC
“Throughout the year we play the song over the intercom when we have an assembly, so all the students can sing their song as they walk through the halls. It’s a great way to get excited and stay focused.”
Broyden Bennett
Principal, École Central Elementary
Fort St John BC
“Not anyone can engage our students like Rik Leaf can. He has invested a great deal of time building relationships with our Indigenous students over the years.”
Deborah Reid
Chief Sunrise Education Centre
K’atl’odeeche First Nation, NWT
“Denetia School had a magical week with Rik Leaf. His music resonated with positivity, teamwork and lifting each other up, raising the spirits of our students. The week was not only fun and energetic, it was healing, inspiring, and deeply meaningful.”
Graham Muncaster
Principal, Denetia School · Lower Post, BC
“Not anyone can engage our students like Rik Leaf can. He has invested a great deal of time building relationships with our Indigenous students over the years.”
Deborah Reid
Chief Sunrise Education Centre
K’atl’odeeche First Nation, NWT
“Throughout the year we play the song over the intercom when we have an assembly, so all the students can sing their song as they walk through the halls. It’s a great way to get excited and stay focused.”
Broyden Bennett
Principal, École Central Elementary
Fort St John BC
BY THE NUMBERS
22
YEARS
Educational Artist
125+
SCHOOLS
Across Canada
100k+
STUDENTS
Discovered their Creative Voice
75
SCHOOL ANTHEMS
Written and Recorded
Hundreds
OF SLAM POEMS
Written and performed in assemblies by students who thought they had nothing to say
GeoGRAPHIC PROOF
From Coast to Coast…
Dozens of Indigenous Schools across Turtle Island
Two ways to work together
Most transformative
Artist in residency
$4,500–$6,000
per week · whole school
Rik spends a full week in your school. Every student helps write and record your school’s original anthem. The week ends with a whole-school performance in the gym. You keep the song forever.
School Anthem Library
$495
per school · per year · whole staff access
A full library of professionally recorded songs including school anthems, SEL classroom songs, Indigenous language songs, and French immersion content. Videos, MP3s, chord charts. Ready to use Monday morning.
The story behind this
Two days before a residency, a principal called with a new request: could I write and record a school anthem involving all 360 students and film the whole process…in one week?
I said yes before I thought it through. By Monday morning, standing in the school, I understood exactly what I had agreed to. By Friday afternoon, 360 students were in the gym performing their song together. A Soul Train-esque dance-off broke out spontaneously. Some teachers had tears in their eyes, as the whole school was swept up in something they had built themselves.
Years later, that principal called to say they still play the anthem over the intercom before every assembly. Students sing it in the hallways on the way to the gym, getting louder as they come together. The song, Change the World, had become the school’s identity. That week changed my world, and became the foundation of everything I do.