Specialism Newsletter December 2010

The St Marylebone CE School Specialisms Newsletter A Specialist Arts, Maths, Computing and SEN College DECEMBER 2010

On Saturday 13th November 2010 St. Marylebone Drama students were invited to close the 10th Shakespeare Schools Festival at the Unicorn Theatre in London’s West End. Directed by Mary Higgins (Year 10) and with a cast drawn from Year 7 to Year 12, St. Marylebone School performed Hamlet to a packed theatre. The cast worked incredibly hard in preparation for the performance, even coming into school on a Saturday morning!

The Shakespeare Schools Festival aims to give students aged 11-18 the opportunity to explore and perform works by the famous playwright. The charity woks with various schools across the country throughout the year to bring Shakespeare to life. The Unicorn Theatre performance saw St. Marylebone join three other schools who each presented a different Shakespeare play.

The performance was a resounding success — congratulations to everyone involved!

At the end of last year, World Culture Day celebrated it’s 15th birthday, with three very exciting performances on Wednesday 30th June and Thursday 1st July.

Students across the whole school performed pieces reflecting a very diverse range of cultures. The show included dance pieces, readings of poetry, songs and instrumental pieces.

All of the students wore costumes that reflected the culture their piece was from.

The performances showed off St. Marylebone’s talent and rich diversity incredibly well.

Congratulations to all the performers!

During the Summer term, Key Stage 3 theatre practitioners came together to create the ‘Nomadic Theatre Company’ and performed ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller.

The play recreates the Salem witch trial of 1692 and the 28-strong cast performed their characters excellently to tell the story. The hysterical screaming during the court scenes when bewitching visions were seen swooping from the ceiling sent a chill down the spine of the gathered audience.

‘The Crucible’ was a fantastic display of the talents of our Key Stage 3 students—well done to the whole cast!

This amateur production was presented by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd.

YEAR 9 Performing Arts festival The duchess of malfi On the 23rd, 24th and 25th June 2010, the whole of Year 9 took part in a cross-curricular collaborative Performing Arts project, to create and perform their own version of the Gothic play, ‘The Duchess of Malfi’.

Dance, drama and music teachers supported by professionals from the English National Opera (ENO) worked with a dedicated form group for all three days. Each of the forms had a different act to work on, creating their own interpretation of the events in the separate sections of the play. The students from the entire year all worked together to collectively create the fifth act. The Year 9 students also created their own backdrops for the theatre with help from the Art department.

After working very hard for two and a half days, the afternoon of the final day saw all of the forms come together to perform the full production to the other Year 9 students and teachers. The performance was fantastic: it highlighted the team-working spirit of Year 9 and the Performing Arts departments and really showcased the talents of the whole of Year 9.

Monday 26th July窶認riday 30th July 2010 During the first week of the holidays, students from Years 7, 8, and 9 joined Year 6 students (who have now started in Year 7 at St. Marylebone School) for the Summer School courses in Dance, Drama, Sports, Textiles, and Maths.

DANCE STUDENTS learned technique exercises in a range of genres and then worked on two Dance Pieces from the musical "Hairspray". These pieces where performed in a sharing on Friday afternoon to a theatre full of parents and summer school students from other courses. Because the students did really well one of the pieces will be shown again in the Dance Show after Christmas.

DRAMA STUDENTS worked together using the theme of secrets to put together a piece for the Friday afternoon showing. During the week, the students had been involved in group work, character improvisations and had also learnt physical theatre techniques.

MATHS STUDENTS used puzzles, games and activities to explore how maths affects everyday life, and also looked at aspects of maths which are not normally covered in the school curriculum. Students presented some of the information they had learnt during the Friday afternoon showing.

FRENCH STUDENTS worked with Miss Calvo to begin learning basic French, to give students some knowledge of the language before they started French lessons in school in September.

TEXTILES STUDENTS learnt new stitching techniques to create Victorian style wall-hangings.

PE STUDENTS took part in both on-site and off-site sporting activities through the week, learning new sporting abilities and improving team-working skills.

DANCE COMPANY SHOWCASE

On Thursday 30th September, St Marylebone School Dance Company performed a selection of pieces from their repertoire. Dance Company have performed these pieces at many outside venues and competitions during the past year, and the showcase allowed Dance Company members to perform to family, friends, staff from St Marylebone, and members of the newly formed Westminster Junior Dance Company.

The performance included pieces choreographed

by Ms. Montsumi (Head of Dance), Grace Benson and Lotte Brockbank, as well as showing pieces created by external choreographers specifically for Dance Company members.

Westminster Junior Dance Company Following on from St Marylebone's successful Dance Company run by Miss Young, the Dance department held auditions for Westminster Junior Dance Company for current Year 7 St Marylebone students and Year 5 and 6 primary pupils from local Westminster Primary schools. Over 50 children attended and 23 places were awarded to pupils who attend Barrow Hill Junior School, St Vincent’s RC Primary School, and All Souls' CE Primary School. The company runs every Wednesday after school and we work on developing choreography and performance skills.

We are currently creating a piece from the 'Lion King' in preparation for St Marylebone's Dance show in the New Year. Please come and watch the show in 2011!

SCHOLAR SUCCESS Dance Scholar and A Level Dance student at St Marylebone, Grace Benson, was in 2009 selected to perform her choreography at the Royal Opera House as part of the Youth Dance England Young Creatives scheme. As a development of this project she is 1 of 5 young choreographers selected to work with the Royal Ballet. She has so far been observing company classes and rehearsals, and recently worked on her own choreography with 2 professional dancers from the Royal Ballet. One of the young choreographers will be invited to choreograph a piece on a larger group of Royal Ballet dancers and to receive mentoring from multi award-winning choreographer Wayne McGregor during the process. The final product will be performed next summer at the Royal Opera House.

On TUESDAY 9th and WEDNESDAY 10th NOVEMBER, Year 8 joined together to create the Nomadic Theatre Company for a performance of the play ‘Blood Wedding’. This follows the tradition of creating Year 8 performance work, which has happened for two previous years.

The whole of Year 8 performed in the production, telling a traditional story of betrayal and revenge. ‘Blood Wedding’ also saw the Drama department collaborating with the Modern Foreign Languages department as the finale of the production saw the entire cast speaking in Spanish!

The two performances were a tribute to the hard work of the cast - well done Year 8!

AUTUMN MUSIC SHOWCASE WEDNESDAY 10TH NOVEMBER

SIXTH FORM SOLOISTS The Autumn Music Showcase was performed in Blandford Street Hall on Wednesday 10th November. The evening gave our current Year 12 AS-level Music students the opportunity to perform solos, in preparation for assessed performances they will be required to do as part of their course.

Solos included: a Chopin Prelude (Tulin Demerci), Chanson D’Amour by Faure (Sharan Kaur), Kitty Cardoso performing a Khatchaturian Toccata, and violin solos performed by Kathleen Cranham and Hasumi Billing. Lettie Leyland performed the last movement of a Beethoven Piano Sonata, Evi Shurety played a concerto Siciliana movement on the oboe, and a Mozart flute concerto movement was heard from Bryony Bridge. Debussy’s Arabesque 1 was performed by Isabelle Luong (piano), who also joined Milad Farhangnia to perform the Allegro Molto movement from Schubert’s Sonata in D. Maeve Campbell sang a solo from The Merry Widow and Jon Ratkoceri performed a piano solo version of What Goes Around Comes Around by Justin Timberlake.

The evening also gave the Music Department the chance to showcase this year’s choirs: Chamber Choir, Sixth Form Choir, and the newly formed Shout Out! choir, made up of students from Years 9, 10 and 11. The Sixth Form Jazz group also had the chance to perform, as they opened the show.

It was a fantastic evening and the solo performances really showcased the talents of our Year 12 students—we will look forward to hearing them perform again soon!

CHAMBER CHOIR

SIXTH FORM CHOIR

SHOUT OUT!

The British Music Experience – ICT and Music Trip

By Fazana Ratta (9H) On Friday 5th November, about 40 students from Years 8 and 9 went to the O2 centre to get the British Music Experience.

Once at the O2 centre we were split into two different groups. My group went to have a workshop where we were given a talk about how the ways we listen to music has changed over the years, from the gramophone to the iPod. We also explored ways in which we may access music in the future.

There were ideas such as the iHologram where you would be able to see the performance of artists in 3D, popping out of your screen. Meanwhile, the other group were experimenting on instruments they may or may not have played before and were given tutorials depending on what stage they were at with the instrument. The two groups then switched.

After this, we went into the exhibition. There were different time periods showing the music of that time. There were timelines you could scroll through showing information on huge screens and learning about major events that happened during that period whilst listening to the popular music of the era. Different displays showed the costumes or belongings of well known music artists and when you pressed a key on the keyboard, you were told when the item was used and why it was so special. There were lots of different songs to listen to, videos to watch and little games throughout the exhibition.

One game that everyone particularly enjoyed was Dance the Decades. You went into a booth with a group of friends and chose a dance you thought looked fun such as the rave, voguing, the loco-motion etc. You were shown the dance and were then recorded trying to repeat it yourself. You could look back at the recorded version of you and your friends doing the dance. It was a very funny experience! Even the teachers had a go!

The crew at the O2 centre wanted us to have a taste of what the future may be like and so our tickets contained a device that we could touch to a sensor point in the exhibition and it would automatically save the content for us to keep for ever! So we saved all that we wanted to, including our dances in the booth, the timelines, the showcases and whatever else we wanted to keep. We can now access all we saved on the website and relive our great experience!

YEAR 7 MUSIC SCHOLARS’ CONCERT The Year 7 Scholars’ Concert that took place on Wednesday 20th October was a wonderful event where we learnt more about each other’s diverse musical talents. The concert started off with a beautiful East African piece performed on the drum and sung by Lilly Tyler and finished with the very accomplished trumpeter Agnes Chandler playing Concert Etude by Goedicke. Venetia Williams also played the trumpet in a lively reading of The Eye of the Tiger. In between those brilliant pieces we heard some extraordinary singing, especially from Genevieve Williams who sang Habanera from Carmen very dramatically, as well as some real classics like Consider Yourself performed by Emily Avis, Hallelujah sung by Katie Wright and Ain’t No Sunshine performed by Caitlin Wong. This was followed by Chloe Phillip’s lovely saxophone Lullaby by Forster, Cesar Frank’s hauntingly beautiful Panis Angelicus sung by Mimosa Canneti and God of My Life performed by the talented Ellis Jones. There were some fantastic string solos

by Amelia Johnson on the cello and Darcey Wolf, Rachel Thomas and Daisy Miller on the violin. We were also treated to two piano solos - Grieg’s evocative Morning played by Savannah Roeder and one of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words by Rosie McCrum. Khalidah Muhammad and Ella Crawford delighted us with some contrasting flute solos. Overall it was a wonderful experience for both the performers and the audience.

By Rosie McCrum 7B

PERFORMING ARTS FACULTY TRIPS There have been numerous trips to various events already this year and a few of the students wanted to share their experiences with you . . .

Dance Performance: ‘Revelations’ During last academic year, St. Marylebone Dance Company performed their version of Alvin Ailey‟s „Revelations‟ piece. Ruby Shakeshaft went to watch a performance by the Alvin Ailey company, and this is her review . . .

In September I went to Sadler‟s Wells to see Alvin Ailey‟s most famous and talked about dance piece: „Revelations‟. The original performance of the piece was in 1960, and it was created for a reason: To show that black dancers were as capable as white dancers. This is why Ailey included many well recognised techniques in his pieces: Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary and traditional African dance. „Revelations‟ portrays the struggle of Black Americans through the 60s and earlier, however there are also moments which portray the celebration of life and of their faith in God. The opening, „Pilgrim of Sorrow‟ was very powerful, and really captured my attention as an audience member. The female‟s long ankle length dress flowed with the movements, particularly in turns and kicks, which exaggerated the movements and created fluidity. The music throughout was traditional gospel music.

Section 2, „Wade in the Water‟ really contrasted with section 1, in that it was much more upbeat, quick and rhythmic. Hands clasped together and high releases showed their praise and devotion to God. „Move, Members, Move!‟ was a great end to a fantastic show. The whole atmosphere was very up-beat and cheerful with a real community feel. The women wore long fitted yellow dresses which again complimented their movement content, with traditional straw hats on their head. Ailey‟s choice of the women walking around the stage at the beginning is said to be conducted from his childhood memories of his mother, aunts and sisters bustling around getting ready for Sunday Mass.

I thoroughly enjoyed Alvin Ailey‟s „Revelations‟, due to its contrasts: Celebration, then sudden change of movements and music that represented the hardship that people suffered. The mixture of dance styles was not only entertaining for the audience, but proved once again that African-American dancers are just as capable as white dancers.

Reasons to be Cheerful Frankie-Rose Taylor Ian Dury‟s music was the soundtrack of my childhood. From a young age, I remember its constant presence and of course the song that now gives its name to a new play that the Graeae Theatre Company brings to Theatre Royal, Stratford East. Through Dury‟s songs, the play meta-theatrically presents the story of a host of characters, their struggle against disability prejudice, illness and their strive to see Ian Dury play at the Hammersmith Odeon. The disabled-led theatre company demonstrated the true meaning of inclusion and exactly what Ian Dury fought for his entire life. He himself developed Polio as a young child which left him with physical disabilities. “I'm charismatic and I'm not ashamed about my physical appearance." Graeae not only used disabled actors but also used captioned dialogue, BSL interpreted songs and audio description in their performance so that the theatrical and musical experience truly was one in which everyone could share.

“Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three!”

Year 12 and 13 Music Technology students experienced a taster of future university life by attending a lecture and demonstration at the British Library. Run by the UCL Neurology department in collaboration with Deafness Research UK, the "Do You Hear What I Hear?" lecture series explored the nature of sound, psychoacoustics and sonic phenomena. In addition to the lecture, the event included practical demonstrations of current research, including a live brain scan of a willing participant!

Mr. Thomas The Motown Band performed at the turning on of the Marylebone Christmas lights on 17th November, our first performance of the year. It was a huge success and the band certainly got everyone in the Christmas spirit! The performance is a very promising sign of things to come this year in Motown, so look out for future gigs.

Zuzanna Grzeskiewicz

Maths

London Eye Trip Ninety keen young mathematicians travelled to the London Eye in October as part of the enriched Year 9 Maths curriculum. Once there, pupils carried out a survey to estimate the boarding rate and used this data to estimate passenger numbers for the attraction. Using this information, they were able to calculate impressively accurate estimates for the income generated by the London Eye and all involved enjoyed the opportunity to see how the mathematics of the classroom can be used to solve practical problems in the outside world.

As an added bonus, students were able to see the “4D Experience”, a groundbreaking 3D film of London sights with in-theatre effects including wind, bubbles and mist adding a breathtaking fourth dimension.

The students thoroughly enjoyed themselves and worked extremely hard on all of the tasks they were presented with. They were a credit to the school.

Code-breaking As part of the year 9 Personalised Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) day, teams of students in Year 9 were tasked with solving the most heinous of crimes… a murder! Their first task in bringing the murderer to justice was to put some newfound code-breaking skills to the test and decipher the message hidden in a note found near the body. This was a task that could only be conquered with excellent team working skills – something Marylebone overflows with! Every single team got stuck into the challenge and through the combined efforts of all members, succeeded in breaking the code.

Here‟s an extract from the mysterious message. Think you can crack it?...

NDJLXAACTKTGVTIPLPNLXIWXI.

Saturday Music School at St. Marylebone School In September 2010, St. Marylebone School started running a new Saturday Music School alongside Takepart! Performing Arts classes. The Saturday Music School at St. Marylebone School (SMS@SMS) is a Westminster City Council initiative which is open to children in Years 4 to 7 who attend a school in Westminster.

SMS@SMS offers children who already play an instrument small group lessons to continue learning their instrument and expanding their technique. Taster lessons are also on offer – these lessons are for children who have not tried an instrument before or for children who would like to try a different instrument for the first time.

In addition to their lesson all children also take part in a weekly ensemble session, allowing them to experience making music with other young musicians in a variety of styles. There are four options for the ensemble class: instrumental ensemble, vocal ensemble, percussion ensemble, and Takepart! Performing Arts classes.

SMS@SMS will provide a fantastic setting for budding musicians to develop musical skills on their chosen instrument or have the opportunity to try something different, whilst also allowing them to work with others to create music and build their all-round musical skills.

If you would like more information about SMS@SMS, please contact Becki Smith via St. Marylebone School.

Takepart! has continued running on Saturday mornings at St. Marylebone School. There are four groups, divided by school year. Using a theme for each term, children create short performance works using skills in music, dance, and drama.

On Saturday 13th November, the children from Takepart! showed their end-of-term performance to a packed theatre of family and friends. The youngest group ‘Sparkle’ performed Mrs Pepperpot’s Vacation. The middle age group, ‘Fizz’ sang Come Sit Closer Minka and acted an interpretation of Dylan Thomas’s poem A Child’s Christmas in Wales, which they performed in coats, gloves, scarves, and hats! ‘Jump’ and ‘Shout’ performed a lively dance to Singin’ In The Rain, in which the oldest students took solo singing roles.

The performance was a fantastic way to end the term and we are looking forward to seeing the talented students perform again at the end of next term!

Becki Smith (Takepart! Manager)

This year, nine students from College Park School have joined the Sixth Form at St. Marylebone. This is the first report from Claire Kinsella (in charge of College Park at St. Marylebone) . . .

What a success the first term has been! The College Park students have embraced the challenges and opportunities at St. Marylebone.

Students have joined extra-curricular activities including football, table tennis and choir. The choir performed in the Autumn Music Showcase event at Blandford Street in November to an audience of family and friends. Three of the boys participated in house cross country and other students are involved in drumming and guitar lessons.

We are celebrating successes in Art, Drama and ICT, where College Park students are working alongside mainstream students. This has improved their communication skills and determination to succeed. During form time, tutors have run a ‘speed chat’ session with Year 13 girls, to great success. New friendships have been forged and continue to develop in the successful 6th form Common Room. In true St Marylebone spirit, 6th form students have volunteered their time to work as peer mentors to help support the integration and learning of College Park students, providing not only a warm welcome to our new cohort of students but also improving their own personal development.

The picture above shows College Park students working with St Marylebone students at Pirbright Barracks on a Year 12 team-building trip at the beginning of the year. The students were thrilled to be involved and are still talking about it.

Jason, Nicolas and Yasser performed in the Year 12 assembly speaking in their home languages. This not only enhanced their confidence and communication but helps to celebrate the cultural diversity of the St Marylebone community. Well done!

Below, we can see a Work Related Learning and Business Enterprise project in process.

The challenge was to make a product that they could market and sell for a profit. The students chose to make cupcakes for which they had to research their own recipes, learn how to find and buy the ingredients, how to bind the ingredients, bake and decorate the final product, ready for sale. We were extremely fortunate to have a professional chef to guide us through the baking process. Advertisements were made during English lessons to promote the product.. The cupcakes were sold during lunch and we made a profit of ÂŁ70. What great fun!

Feedback from parents and governors indicate how successful the integration of College Park at St Marylebone has been thus far. Students are enjoying and achieving and have a new zest for school life. Thank you to everyone who has been involved so far. We are looking forward to see what the rest of the year brings!

In the next issue . . .

All the photographs and details from the performances of the whole school musical ‘Anything Goes’.

Pictures and comments from the annual Festival of Readings and Carols.

Dates for your Diary Thursday 20th January Year 12 AS-Level Music Recital Blandford Street Hall, 5.00pm Thursday 27th January Year 13 A-Level Music Recital Blandford Street Hall, 5.00pm Thursday 10th and Friday 11th February Sixth Form Play: The Birthday Party Blandford Street Hall, 6.00pm Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th February Dance Show St Marylebone School Theatre, 6.30pm

Term Dates Term 3: Wednesday 5th January - Friday 18th February 2011 HALF-TERM: Monday 21st February - Friday 25th February 2011 Term 4: Monday 28th February - Wednesday 6th April 2011 (12.30pm finish)