St Marylebone School: Specialisms Newsletter- Spring 2013

The St Marylebone CE School Specialisms Newsletter Spring 2013 A Specialist School in Performing Arts, Maths, Computing, Communication & Interaction

Wednesday 28th November Thursday 29th November

In November 2012, St Marylebone School performed our very own version of ’The Nativity’. Set in the 1960s, the play was adapted from David Farr’s version of the traditional Christmas tale to include the ‘man on the moon’ and 1966 World Cup, complete with 60s style clothing and colours!

Over fifty students were involved in putting together the comedy action. There were notable performances from Katie L (12WH) as the hilarious Inn Keeper, Caitlin B (12HB) and Mary H (12DW) did a fantastic job of leading the cast as Mary and Joseph, and Caitlin M (8N) and Kira Miller (8D) were comedy gold as the Donkey!

In February 2013. the annual Dance Show took place at St Marylebone School. This year’s show was entitled Dulce Deficio and was about a journey through sixteen levels of a computer game by the performers, aiming to find the meaning of success, with the legend of Pulcher Deficio, the Goddess of Success, as their guide. The performance included pieces by students from all school years and was a thoroughly enjoyable show. Well done to all involved.

My experience of the Dance Show was a good one. As it was my first Marylebone Dance Show, I didn't know what it was going to be like. As the show got nearer and nearer the rehearsals got tougher and tougher. It was absolutely exhausting but it was so much fun! On the nights of all three shows I was so nervous in case I made a mistake but fortunately I didn't. When it all ended I was relived but also sad because I knew I had to wait another year till the next one!

Jasmine M (7H) Last term, I took part in the Dance Show, which is an event I look forward to every year (having taken part in it since Year 7), as I love dancing and performing. We started rehearsals in September and I was in quite a number of pieces which required lots of dedication and time put towards the individual dances. However, going to all of the rehearsals gives you lots of experience and can give you an idea of the life of a professional dancer. Overall, my favourite part of the Dance Show was the long-awaited time of finally getting to perform in front of an audience, and all of the excitement backstage with all of the other dancers from different year groups. The Dance Show was such a fun experience, and I can’t wait for next year!

Marla F (10D)

The Drama Department is proud to announce "Way Out" - our very own monthly programme of new and exciting theatre brought straight to St Marylebone. We are continually inviting outside theatre practitioners to come and perform their work for our students at a discounted price. This year's programme is set to include a variety of performances, from physical theatre to sketch comedy.

Our first performance was "Play for September", a coming of age story written by Olivia Hirst of Lost Watch Theatre. Stay tuned for details of next month's show!

Key Stage 5 DRAMA Year 12 have completed their ‘monologues’ exam, each of them preparing a two-minute solo performance.

We were extremely lucky to have had the assistance of students studying directing at East 15 Drama School, whose experience was invaluable to the Year 12 performers. This year the scripts ranged from Chekhov to Laura Wade. We were very pleased with the finished performances.

Year 13 finished their devised work around The Holocaust.

Devising a play around this issue has been exceptionally difficult.

Though we recognise the value in remembering, and learning from such a horrific event, we have struggled with the weight of responsibility in honouring those who died unnecessarily. Each group have looked at a different question posed by these events: ‘Why did people commit these crimes of prejudice?’ ‘How do people live with the guilt of what happened?’ and perhaps most poignantly ‘How do we remember the millions of people who suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime?’.

It has not been an easy process, but we have learned a lot along the way, stories of bravery and survival against all odds. The most important thing we have learned is that each individual, like everyone else, deserved equality. The final performances were moving as well as thought provoking.

Friday Masterclasses Every Friday, the Drama Department are hosting an initiative called Friday Masterclass which allows students to take part in drop-in workshop sessions on a particular area of theatre and acting. To run the workshops we are utilising the amazing professional contacts we have at St Marylebone, as well as allowing Key Stage 5 Drama Scholars to lead workshops in a specialism of their choice. So far we have had workshops on improvisation, devising, accents, and physical theatre. Friday Masterclasses are open to all students—please sign up on the door of the Theatre if you would like to take attend a session.

DRAMA COMPANY We have started a Company for Drama students who are preparing a Women in Shakespeare Cabaret, which will be performed on 9th May 2013. This exciting show will look at how Shakespeare portrayed women in his writing, and how these roles can be made relevant to a modern day audience. This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to learn about the role of women in literature by exploring female characters in the works of our most famous playwright.

Key Stage 3 Company Over sixty students attended the first few sessions of the new Key Stage 3 Drama Company. Unfortunately, we were unable to host this many students on a weekly basis so the Drama Department held auditions to find thirty students who will create a play based on Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, which will be performed in the summer term. The Drama Department were overwhelmed with the talents of all students, and they are looking forward to working with all Key Stage 3 students throughout the rest of the year.

Tech Club On Monday lunch times this term Ms Mathewson, our Theatre Technician, has been teaching students how to use the lighting and sound desks and the skills required to run the technical aspects of a production. So far the Tech Club student team have supported Ms Mathewson in the running of technical theatre for the Sixth Form Play, ‘As You Like It’, and also for this year’s Dance Show in February, ‘Dulce Deficio’. Well done to all involved!

LAMDA Our 23 LAMDA students are now well on their way to achieving success in their exams, which will take place in the summer term. They have been working on their prepared Monologues and Duologues which are all looking excellent.

The Drama Department wish the students well for their exams!

Thursday 19th December marked St Marylebone School’s annual Festival of Lessons and Carols service. This year represented a slight change from previous years by having musical performances that were directly related to the readings that preceded them. This gave the service the feel of a ‘Festive Musical’, with a majority of the repertoire composed by Deputy Head Teacher, Mrs Yarrow. The service included some beautifully expressive vocal numbers from soloists from a variety of year groups. The entirety of Year 7 had a starring role in performing ‘Ooh Zachariah’, a song which was full of witty lyrical content fitting for the Broadway stage! There were numerous evocative duets: ‘What Joy is this?’ sung by Caitlin W and Genevieve W (Year 9), ‘The Great I am’, sung by Max T and Sara K (Year 13), in addition to a number of solo items. The newly formed St Marylebone String Concertante began the service with a masterly performance of Corelli’s Chirstmas Concerto. In addition the St Marylebone Chamber Choir, Church Choir and Symphony Orchestra all played prominent roles. The service was considered to be an innovative and resounding success. Well done to all involved!

After the success of having two finalist in last year’s competition, St Marylebone is now in the enviable position of having four finalists for the 2013 Woodard Schools’ Young Musician of the Year competition. The four finalists selected - Lenna S (Year 8), Agnes C (Year 9), Helen C, (Year 13) and Grayce M (Year 13)) will be competing against other prestigious musicians from Woodard Corporation Schools across the country. All four will be required to play demanding solo performances, showing-off their individual talents to a panel of musical experts. The final takes place at King’s Place on 4th May 2013. We wish our performers the best of luck!

During the half-term, I took part in a 5-day project at Goldsmith’s college with some other students from St. Marylebone. It involved semi-staging (using a stage and costumes without acting out in full) Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo. Our roles were different as I played in the orchestra while the four other Marylebone girls sang in the chorus, but we were all given the task of helping keep the thirty 6-10 year-olds quiet and happy during the dress rehearsal: frustrating at times, but generally a lot of fun!

Monteverdi wrote the opera in 1607, telling the story of Orpheus and his descent into the underworld. The music is of the baroque style, and was played on period instruments – I played a natural trumpet, the ancestor of the modern trumpet. The chorus sang a translated part so that the younger children could be more involved in the story, and I actually found that it was interesting to see how the lyrics had been derived from a direct translation. What I enjoyed the most was working with professional musicians and music students. It really gave me an idea of what music is like as a job, especially as I am now considering what career I would like to follow! If the course were to be held again, I would definitely recommend it to keen singers.

Agnes C (9D)

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING On Thursday 24th January, 6 students from St Marylebone in Year 7, 8 and 9 went on a Maths trip to the Royal Academy of Engineering. This was part of the D:STEM event, which was organised to help students who are interested in Maths and Science, to add creativity to their designs.

When we got to the venue, five scientists spoke about what sort of science they specialise in. They even talked about how they are designing a new type of Oyster card, which will basically be a small ring that we can wear to scan through the barriers.

After a brief introduction, we were told the project that we would have to design and eventually make. We had to design a new type of speaker. But the problem was, it couldn’t look like a normal speaker that we use every day.

The St Marylebone girls decided that we would make stickers that would talk. These stickers would congratulate you on pieces of homework or general positive attitude, remind you of what homework you were set on that day, reading out a story book whilst you read it, etc. We branded our design as “SPICKERS” – speaker stickers! We connected the circuits and slowly we ended up with talking stickers. We had an amazing day out and thank Miss Li-In-Oy for taking us all on an amazing trip.

Kiran (9H) The ENGINEERING EDUCATION SCHEME is now fully underway with our team of Year 12 students finalising their project to design a wind farm and choose the best location for it in the UK. Just before the Christmas break, the team, along with our engineers from Atkins Global, spent 3 days at the University of Surrey to complete work on the project. Our students spent time researching locations, designing a model wind turbine and optimising their wind turbine design.

The 3 days culminated in a presentation to all the other teams participating in the scheme and drew lots of interest from the other schools. The Marylebone team is now in the final stages of the project and will be compiling their report as well as preparing for their Celebration and Assessment Day at the beginning of May. UKMT Team Challenge This February four pupils from Key Stage 3 travelled to the City of London School to take part in the prestigious UK Mathematics Trust Team Challenge Regional Finals. Aisha and Angela from Year 9 teamed up with Year 8 students Karina and Kira to pit their wits against teams from schools across London over a series of challenging activities that tested their mathematical dexterity, creativity, teamwork and communication skills. Despite stiff competition from 26 other schools, consistently high scores across all four rounds saw the team finish in a very creditable 7th place.

Sky Skills social networking film workshop On Wednesday 16th January, 17 Year 9 pupils went on a trip to the Sky Skills Studio in Hammersmith.

We went to film our own news report at the studio. Beforehand, we met together with our groups to discuss what we wanted our report to be based on.

Upon arrival to the studio, we met with the team leaders who told us more about Sky and the specially designed building.

Afterwards, we were given a tour around the building, where we saw the green screens and a studio. We were also lucky enough to be able to see all of the people who had to edit and be 'on call' ready to sort any problems out while filming before the programme is broadcast.

We then got to see the special studio that had been designed for school visits, which had editing tables, and cameras, along with green screens that we had fun deciding which background to use.

With our team leader, we put together a script for the presenters to read out, then rehearsed in front of the camera, and let the editor practise using the special pad.

Our presenters then chose their outfits for in front of the camera, we them filmed, edited and sent the film to the main computer, where they put all four of our reports into a main video, with the special background 'jingle' and welcoming speech from a real presenter.

We got to take away the video on a USB, and were also given a pencil case with a notepad as well.

The day was really fun, and everyone really enjoyed it.

Rani (9W)

Hannah (7N), Emily (7W), and Nicole (7H) On Tuesday 5th February, during our ICT lessons, some of the Year 7 classes were taken to watch a presentation and take part in a Cyber Workshop. We were told all about online safety and the point of this workshop was to make us all aware about what we post on the internet, and how it can affect us.

We all learnt about how posting personal information such as your mobile number, your age, your email address and most importantly, your photos, will leave your footprint on the internet, so it is accessible to the world to see. We should be careful on what we put online such as on Facebook, Twitter and other places where we may give out our personal details. This is a typical way to attract stalkers or hackers, even if you do have a privacy setting, because hackers are professionals so they will easily be able to break into your account. We watched a clip of a 10-year old girl who posted all of her personal details for everyone to see outside her house. She also left the door open and posted lots of pictures of her throughout her life in the hallways. A stranger walked into her house and started talking to her, asking her what school she went to and many other personal questions which she answered. All the Year 7 girls who watched the mini clip agreed that it was not appropriate for the girl to put her life on poster outside her door.

The Cyber Champion visitors told us a way to remember how to be safe on the internet by staying SMART: S- Safe: Be careful not to give out personal information when you’re emailing or chatting.

M-Meeting: Don't meet anyone you only know through emails or online chats. They may not be who they say they are.

A-Accepting: Accepting emails, messages or files can be dangerous as they may contain viruses.

R-Reliable: People may lie about who they are and information on the internet may not be true.

Only go on sites that you know won't fool you or give you false information.

T-Tell: Tell your parent, carer or a trusted adult if someone or something makes you feel uncomfortable or worried, or if you or someone you know is being bullied online.

Then we finished by just talking about what online games we played and how much time we spent on them. This is what we learned at the Cyber Workshop and we now hope you, too, have gained knowledge on how to keep safe online. Next time you go online, hopefully you will be SMART and remember that you should not give away ANY personal information that could be used to locate you and to be sure not to add anyone you do not know and have not met on social-networking systems.

Trip to PrintFast Ltd

Our trip to PrintFast was an excellent insight into modern day printing and screening. We had the ability to speak to one of the workers at Print Fast, who gave us crucial information regarding major printing, industrial printing and commercial printing. We were taught about the different aspects in areas of printing – such as colour codes used, page size, toner intensity and formats of pages.

Terry, our guide, gave us examples of professional work which had been completed recently, illustrating how there had been effects added to the pages which made the document unique and very distinct to its competitors. Our guide also explained how the development of technology has allowed printing organisations to benefit economically. This is due to the fact that most print documents can now be sent through e-mail, specifying requirements. This allows the printing industries to clear our more jobs and earn more money from it. The finally aspect we explored was the styles and types of page style which could be implied to documents. So if a customer specifically specified that a matte black finish was needed for the leaflet he/she had been creating, then the printers would give them that effect, however with a higher cost to the document.

Our trip to PrintFast was a great experience. It allowed us to create and continue coursework which we had Gentrit (Year 13) begun with ease, with the information we had collected from PrintFast.

Two of our Year 13 Dance students and one Year 9 student have recently been offered exciting opportunities for next year - read about their fantastic achievements below...

Ella R 13NT I’ve always had aspirations to be dancing at Urdang Academy but never thought I could make it happen. Last Saturday I was delighted to learn that I had been successful in my audition for Urdang Academy, and I will start my course there in September. This is a really exciting opportunity for me to continue to expand my dance skills, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunities St Marylebone has offered me to build a strong foundation for further training.

Charlie B 13NV I recently gained a place with Springs Dance Company to join them in September, once I have finished my A-level studies at St Marylebone. I was thrilled to be offered a place, especially as I was auditioning with dancers who were much older than me. I am looking forward to the opportunities and challenges of working with a professional dance company over the next year, and will be excited to come back and visit St Marylebone to thank the Dance Department for their training and support which helped me to be offered the place.

Serina F 9H We are very proud to announce that Serina in Year 9 has recently been offered a place at the prestigious Elmhurst Ballet School, the younger company of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. We are thankful to Serina for all her commitment to and involvement with Dance at St Marylebone, and wish her the best of luck at Elmhurst and for her future.

St Marylebone students are taking part in the Inner Voices Choir performance of Handel’s Messiah in April. If you would like to get tickets, please contact Becki Smith (Performing Arts Coordinator) who will be able to put you in touch with Genevieve to purchase tickets.

Dates for your diary Thursday 21st March 2013 Spring Concert: The Nature of Music St Marylebone Parish Church, 7.00pm Friday 19th April 2013 Academic Review Day

Term Dates End of Term 4: Wednesday 27th March, 12.30pm Term 5: Monday 15th April - Friday 24th May 2013 Inter-term break: Monday 27th May - Friday 31st May 2013 Term 6: Monday 3rd June - Thursday 18th July 2013