Vocal Voices

Its like the end of an era!!!!! Tonight is L's school Christmas performance and as she is now in Yr 6 it will be the last one ever.

Our school doesn't do the traditional nativity - well, the juniors don't anyway. The infants do their bit for the first half hour - always a nativity - and then the juniors do their bit. The head buys plays that are aimed at Yr 8 and 9 children, they always include loads of singing and dancing and are always fantastic.

This year they are doing The School Nativity. I have read the script as I was helping them highlight everyone's parts and it is brilliant. Its is about the putting on of a school nativity and is the story of the back biting that goes on with the pushy parents and precocious children. The staff have changed all the characters so that the staff in the play have the same names as them, the parent helpers have the same names (so yes, I am in it. One of L's friends is playing me. She keeps watching me to see what sort of clothes I generally wear and has insisted on borrowing some of my make up and jewellery to make it more real). Some of the children play themselves and some of the children play those children's parents!

I have to speak at the end. I hate speaking in public but as Chair of Governors I have to say thank you to all the staff, children and parents.

Fortunately The Idiot will not be there tonight as they are at a wedding - which has been a huge relief to Mick as he hasn't had to come across him yet.

Hope it all goes well Debih - I'm sure it will

It sounds wonderful Debih, have a good time

Oh Debbie that sounds like it'll be lovely - and emotional too

Have a lovely evening!

OMG it was amazing! The best one ever.

There was loads of singing and dancing in it and the kids had got their costumes down to a T. You could pretty much guess which child was playing which teacher/parent without looking at the programme. The girl playing the head had got the highest pair of bright red heels on ever - exactly what our head wears. The girl who was playing me had even got hold of a pair of leopard print stiletto boots like mine.

The infants nativity was really cute but the juniors performance just blew us all away. Half way through they all suddenly jumped on stage and started doing gangnam style - including dancing down the aisle doing it (not very often you see gangnam style in church!!). At the end the three children playing the three main teachers went and stood next to their prospective teacher (who had tried very hard to dress very similar to the child playing them) and joined in the last dance.

There was an encore for the gangnam dance and this time the teachers joined in - it was hilarious. The kids were all on a real high at the end. And we raised over £300 in ticket sales (not bad for £1.50 per person and a school with only 56 pupils!!!)

I kept my bit very short and sweet - thank you very much for coming, blah, blah, blah.

A friend recorded it for my dad so I think I might even watch it again sometime.

It sounds fantastic Debih, what a high standard they have

That really does sound wonderful Deb!

Tom and Joe's junior school never did a play which was always a shame. The infants school did a nativity before the amalgamation but once the new head took over that stopped (even though it was a church school). They did do an annual Grandparents Show in Year 3 where they performed wartime songs and did little wartime sketches, all linked in with their history project, but that was only for grandparents.

That sounded brilliant Debih and also sounds like a helluva lot of hard work went into it.

The infant school J and C went to in the UK only had 58 pupils and I'll always remember the warmth and affection that the pupils, teachers and headmaster had for each other.

Happy days indeed.