I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure how we got here, but we’re now one week away from the end of term 1 and what an amazing week it has been.
Last week’s hope for blue skies was partially fulfilled, we did have some, but more importantly, we have not had any rain! I will be really honest and say that I have struggled to choose a highlight from this week. I know there have been so many wonderful events both in school and outside, all of which have been supported by everyone here in primary.
With the exception of the winter concerts, all of the events have been ‘behind closed doors’ (to parents, at least) and this has got me really thinking about what is important to us as a school and what skills we are developing in our students. The very fact that we have students in Year 1 who are part of Queenie’s training orchestra is incredible and the quality of Stephen’s KS1 choir is just amazing. These students got up on stage and performed brilliantly in front of a full house of adults. We all know that the Performing Arts and Juilliard is one of our pillars and quite rightly so. The skills our students develop through this are potentially lifelong and totally transferable.
Staying with the theme of performing, it was a real pleasure to watch two of the Reception classes perform their Christmas songs this morning. What was also a pleasure was to see what a wonderful audience PN and Y1 were. They were all engrossed and beautifully behaved during both the recording times and the transition times. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about some of the adults at the SRC on Wednesday. Not only were they not showing ‘good audience’ behaviours during transition times and sitting quietly, they were also actively distracting the performers. I know this first-hand because I had a gentleman (presumably a dad) come and sit next to me in the reserved seat and proceed to block my front-row view with his mobile phone as he recorded one of the performances. Not only that, but he was waving furiously to get the attention of one of the girls (presumably his daughter) on the second row on stage. I am sure that her smile and wave made a lovely moment on the video, but was it really worth it? What are we trying to teach our young people? Is it worth whatever it takes to get the ‘perfect’ photograph? Is it acceptable to spoil something for others so that you get what you want? I know that I was tired and possibly more than a bit grumpy at the end of a busy day, but my irritation wasn’t actually for myself (despite the invasion of my personal space). It was actually for the staff and students who had put so much work in and were thoroughly deserving of their moment of fame. I will now stop being tired and grumpy and focus on what I really wanted to talk about!
Before I begin, I would just like to say how much I love showing off our children and their talents and I also love showing off how amazing our teachers are at enabling our students to be their best selves. Just before I began my marathon interview session this morning, I was able to visit Y6’s WWII street party as well as watch Reception singing. Both events would normally have involved parents, but I can’t help thinking that the children were able to engage in the activities in a totally different way because they were in a completely safe space. Reception were still able to perform in front of an audience but they were not distracted by seeing their parents and family members (there were zero tears this year compared to many last year!) and Year 6 were playing games and swing dancing together without a care in the world. They did not need to perform, nor did they need to be anything other than themselves with eachother, their teachers and their LAs. Just like sometimes I think we lose the ability to be in a moment because it has to become an ‘Instagram moment’ and look just so, I wonder if we need to be particularly selective of what and how we share with our families so that we maintain the integrity of the events themselves. I am not saying in any way that we don’t want to share, I am saying we should share differently. I have no idea what this would look like, it’s just a thought and it’s Friday so I decided to share it with you.
It’s December, so have now started on Now Christmas. It always takes me back to my BHS days when we had the Christmas shop from mid-October and Christmas music blaring on BHS radio. East 17 would like me to Stay Another Day. I may, but for now it’s home time.
Happy Friday everyone, and the penultimate one for 2020.
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