Hello,
Hope all is well with you.
Well, we didn't win the choir competition on Tuesday but we had a great, exciting day!
We had an epic journey of walking around 3/4 of a mile to the station, getting a train and then tube and then a 3/4 mile walk up a hill. The rehearsal went ok- we had a moment where we realised that one of children had not brought her dinner with her (or water bottle), despite being asked twice if she had her dinner! The children were very noisy when they weren't performing which did get a little tiresome after a while and I discovered at school, that one of the boys had hidden another girl's lunchbox...luckily, I managed to find where it had been hidden but I did have to start our journey with a stern word. Other than that, they behaved mostly and there was, Ann, you will be glad to learn, NO VOMIT GATE!
The standard of the other schools was really high. The winning school chose a really great pair of songs that really showed off the children's voices beautifully and I had them as the winners in my mind almost immediately. The second song, an environmental song called Breathe, was really evocative. The other schools gave great performances and a really interesting set of choices of repertoire. The school who got second place had a hilarious version of 'This old man' which made me really giggle and they sang a song with hatography (they did lots of movements with hats)- wasn't so keen on their first song but they were really polished and brilliant! We didn't get to hear the choir that came 3rd as we were back stage waiting to go onto stage.
Our first song went quite well, a song called Dreamer, and then our second song, Water Come o' me eye, had a hairy moment in the middle.. After singing the 2 verses beautifully in unison, the children go into 4 parts where 3 groups sing different riffs/ostinati (repeated patterns), at this point, the 2nd group, rushed off out of time with the others. I had to conduct really hard to try and get them to realise they were out of time, and eventually, managed to get them back together, but it was quite obvious. I was glad they were able to get back in time though. The third song, Can you feel the love tonight, was pretty good although we could have done some more dynamic changes.
I was asked by the teacher of the next school after us to turn pages for her at the piano which was scary! I am always scared of messing up. Luckily, I didn't but it was a bit nerve-wracking!
When they announced the judge's comments, A, star pupil, was sitting next to me, and as soon as we had been given our feedback, she leaned over and said, "We definitely haven't won, we got WAAAY more feedback than the others!).
The kids were disappointed, but most were pragmatic about not winning. The chair of our governors also came to watch as well as my headteacher. The chair and one parent told me well done and another parent messaged me to say thank you and well done but I didn't get anything from any other parents really.
Luckily, all parents turned up to pick up their children, two were a bit late but I managed to get home by about 10.15pm!
The next day, I was super tired but luckily had Year 5 doing a lesson I know and love well, creating their opening to Vltava in groups. The year 6 class I had last lesson were a bit tiresome though- they were very lethargic although seemed to enjoy watching the BBC Ten Pieces version of Winter from the Four Seasons. I was sent home 10mins early from staff meeting after school as I was falling asleep in it (apparently, so was everyone else though!).
Thursday was quite a good day for the year 3 recorder lessons. The year 2's were ok starting their first lesson on Communication. In choir, I started two new songs, one I wrote about 15 years ago called 'Peter Piper' which is a tongue twister song and its the first time I have taught it since then!!! A requested a vocal score as she prefers to follow the notes.
Friday, my year 6 lessons were quite enjoyable and I started a Greek Persephone theme for their Singing Assembly- I found a book in the cupboard which I've never used and I decided to give it a go! I'm going to do a Peter Pan theme with the Year 3-4's and a Dinosaurs and all that rubbish theme with Year 1-2. I might get them to perform to each other in the playground in July!
After school, I had to rush off to the hospital for yet another scan. It was a bigger one and I had to lie there on my tummy for 20minutes (needing the loo!) as they did a contrast dye scan etc. I read my book as they did it and Yomi, my lovely scanning operator commented how relaxed I looked!
I cycled home from the hospital (despite being told to wait an hour) and then watched Dr Who all evening after picking lots of kale and chard in the garden to eat with sausages from the freezer.
CBC is in Majorca/Mallorca this weekend for the Malloca 312 (km!) race/ride so I was a bit lonely.
I've been doing some cleaning and tidying today and I'm glad I managed to get some sorting done though not as much as I wanted to. Ah well.
Tomorrow morning, I've got to play piano/lead worship at church- bit nervous as some of the songs are not so familiar to me as last week.
Then, I need to carry on with the cleaning and get some school work done.Not ideal for a Sunday...
Hope all is well with you!
xxx