We are very busy at choir at the moment and need all the rehearsal time we can get for all our festive performances! Choir will therefore run until 4.30 on Wednesday 30th November and Wednesday 7th December instead of the usual 4.15 finish. Please note there will be NO choir on Wednesday 14th December due to Carols By Candlelight which starts at 6pm and all children will be expected to attend.
Many thanks,
Miss Teale
The choir has lots of events coming up!
On Thursday we had our first curriculum music assembly of the academic year. This is where all KS1 and KS2 get to perform the song they have been learning in their curriculum music lessons. The assembly started with the KS1 children’s rousing performance of ‘Hey You’, a hip- hop song written for young children by Joanna Mangona.
This was followed by the Y3/ 4 children who chilled us all out by singing ‘Three Little Birds’ , the classic reggae hit by Bob Marley. All 90 children sang and performed actions for the song they had been working hard on whilst learning about reggae music as a genre in itself.
Finally, the Y5/6 children raised the roof with ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey, a rapturous finale to a fantastic assembly.
All children took part in this wonderful assembly which involved both singing and instrumental playing. At Fishergate we arrange these inclusive music assemblies to celebrate what children in school have been learning in their curriculum music lessons as part of our music vision.
Thank you to all parents and carers who came along to the assembly and to Liz Spain, Kathryn Fenwick and Andrea Walton for their hard work teaching the children music this half term.
We posted last week about our participation in the “One Day One Choir” global choral initiative, which started in 2014 and was created to mobilise the inspiring and harmonious power of singing together to unite people globally to sing for peace. On International Peace Day, September the 21st, Fishergate joined in to sing for peace. Click below to listen!
This week we all joined together to sing for peace all around the world on International Peace Day! The whole school, including staff and parents came together to sing the song ‘One Candle’, a powerful song which promotes the message of peace for everyone around the world. We all had a few moments of quiet to think about how the world would be a better place if we all got on together and were kind to each other. We even sang in Latin! Dona nobis pacem – Grant us peace.
One Day One Choir is a global choral initiative, started in 2014, which has been created to mobilise the inspiring and harmonious power of singing together to unite people globally to sing for peace on International Peace Day, September the 21st.
On Wednesday 27th April, Fishergate Choir took part in the York Schools Choral Festival at the University of York. We took part in exciting samba and banner making workshops in the morning and then performed in the HUGE Central Hall with other primary and secondary schools as part of the festival in the afternoon. We were privileged to be invited to sing with the Singing and Signing choir who had heard how great we were at signing. We jointly performed the Sign2Sing song from this year ‘Reach out your Hand’ which proved to be pretty emotional for some staff and parents! As well as this, we sang the song ‘Walking on Sunshine’ which involved singing, dancing and lots of smiles, although coming out of the Central Hall to a dusting of snow maybe it should have been ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’! Well done to everyone who took part and made the day such a huge success, we even made it in to the newspaper, take a look here in the York Press
Click on the picture to see the article in the Press!
This week the children from Miss Teale and Mrs Ekers’ class visited their friends at Willow House as part of the Musical Connections project. The theme of the workshop was ‘Spring, with a Little bit of Lion’ to tie in with our school production of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’.
We dressed up for the sunshine and even made our own compositions using our own bodies based on different animals. One of our favourite parts was the clapping game that we all took part in with residents. This brought lots of smiles to lots of faces, both young and old. We all feel really privileged to work with the residents of Willow House as part of this exciting project! If you would like to find out more please see their website at www.musicalconnections.org.uk
Y5/6 have been listening to Vaughan William’s ‘Lark Ascending.’ This piece of music is a musical setting of George Meredith’s poem of the same name. ‘The Lark Ascending’ has a beautiful violin melody, depicting the soaring skylark flying above the fields near Margate. The piece was written just as WW1 was breaking out and, a hundred years later, it is still shoing its enduring appeal – in both 2014 and 2015 it topped the Classic FM poll and was voted the nation’s favourite piece of music!
The children responded to the piece of music in different ways, including painting, writing a word picture, and creating a composition which contrasts the peacefulness of the bird, with the horror of war.
Listen to some of our compositions!
KS2 had a fantastic day this week travelling through the decades of the 20th century. We sang the Blues in the 1920’s, danced our way through Swing and hand jived in to the 1950’s! It was all Peace and Love in the 1960’s (complete with duvets!) and we all realised we all knew a lot more about music from the 1970’s than we thought. Finally on our journey we took part in a Battle of the Bands in the 1990’s, along with our very own Liam Gallagher! The children gained an insight in to iconic music and artists from these decades as well as the cultural effects they had on the world. Of course, we all dressed up for the part, the order of the day definitely being David Bowie! From Elvis to the Spice Girls, Paul McCartney to Kate Bush we all looked (and sounded!) the part.
