St Luke Winter Festival

On Wed 25th  and Thursday 26th  November 2009 St Luke’s School held a two day “Winter Festival” celebrating “Culture and Creativity”. Students took part in a wide variety of activities ranging from cookery to sports and animation. Thanks to generous funding from Commonweal School, students also took part in the following interesting Arts activities:-

Drama - Facilitator Aaron Parsons (booked through Sixth Sense Theatre) Students were encouraged to use their imaginations using drama techniques such as hot seating and freeze frame to create scenarios and characters. They worked on using their voices to show expression and feeling.

Music - Facilitator Laura Tanner (Creative Orchestra) Students worked in small groups to create their own piece of music using various instruments including drums, guitars and lots of percussion. Some of the groups wrote their own lyrics and included vocals (mostly rapping and beat box).

Street Dance - Facilitator Ian Baker. Students participated in three different half hour workshops using music to enjoy exercise - these included Street Dance (working together to choreograph a routine), Box-a-cise (using boxing movements to coordinate a routine to music) and Soccer Jam (exercise with movements to music using a football).

Both staff and students felt that these workshops were really enjoyable and rewarding for the students and gave them an opportunity to develop a variety of skills they might not usually have the opportunity to try.

Staff comments:

“I supported the drama skills workshop which was very popular and the facilitator was excellent”

“It was especially good that our students had opportunities to perform. I’d like to see the students have more opportunities to develop these skills on a regular basis”

“I think the students enjoyed the music, dance and drama the most”

“I supported the Street Dance workshop throughout the day and it was fantastic. The students were given the opportunity to build their confidence and be creative”

Student's comments:

“Street dance is fun because you do boxing and dance” Michael, Year 7

“It was a fun time and a cool time” Sharisse, Year 7

“I can do drumming now, and I couldn’t do that yesterday” Jake, Year 7

“I like the football skills in Street Dance – Go to Street Dance!” Kyle, Year 7

“It was fun and you should do Street Dance” Tom, Year 8

“I did recording my own music and street dance and it was brilliant and entertaining and knowledgeable and fun!” Kiren, Year 8