Performing Arts Report Term Six June 2007
Written by Josie Williams, Community Arts Development Officer

Ability Follows Enthusiasm.

As our third year of our Performing Arts status comes to a close we can reflect on the strength and diversity of our projects which undoubtedly is down to the commitment and camaraderie of all in our community from teachers and support staff to students, parents, patrons, steering group members and governors. Thank you all for help you are indeed fab people!

One of the highlights of this term has been our CD, ‘Now That’s What I Call Commonweal’, Vol 2 , featuring ex Commonwealian Justin Hayward of Moody Blues fame. Within hours of the launch we received a dozen or so emails and phone calls from Justin Hayward fans from Japan, USA, New Zealand, Netherlands, Italy, Wales and the rest of the UK! Apparently a fan forum site spotted it in the Advertiser and news is spreading like wild fire! The CD is priced £3.99 for 21 tracks and is available from the Finance Office or by post simply email me josie@commonweal.co.uk I have listened to the album several times now and feel immensely proud!

The track that Justin sent is called THE VOICE and is from the Moody Blues album Long Distance Voyager.  Justin reworked the song in his studio specially for the school's album.

”I was there in the early sixties. All of us at Commonweal felt there was nowhere better.  Even if our great rivals Headlands outperformed us academically now and again, we had style.  I was constantly amazed at the number of imaginative ways all the girls and boys had of wearing the uniform while still being within the rules.

”I lived with my family in the Mall, within earshot of the school, and I could jump out of bed and into my uniform (already prepared the night before and waiting for me) as soon as I heard the first morning bell, and still make it to assembly. Brilliant!

”My mother was a teacher at Drove Road school and my father taught at Sanford Street, so our lives and holidays were kind of co-ordinated.  I can’t say I was happy all of the time at school, but looking back they really were the very best of times, and I’m so proud of Commonweal now.

”I’m pleased to have a song on this CD.  I’m in good company.

”The Performing Arts make the world a better place, and I know that when you have music, art, dance or any creative endeavour as part of your life you will be enriched, as well as enriching the lives of those around you, which in the end must always be your purpose.” Justin Hayward

The album was launched on 20th June and involved 80 students, past, present and future, including Felix Bowyer, a reception class child from our feeder school King William and Cat Jamieson who attended Commonweal a few years ago. This year we have a track from the school choir and also the concert band besides vocalist and bands and members of staff. What a fantastic way to raise money and awareness of our talented crew if which I am immensely proud ! A massive thank-you to Justin for giving us the track, he is a star through and through! Further info and some of the tracks can be found on our arts events pages sit back and enjoy!

Commonweal School is the first in the Swindon area to complete the first level of Arts Council England’s Arts Award initiative for young people. Of the 17 students entered all passed with flying colours and will celebrate their achievements at a special event in November.

“This is an extremely new and exciting national initiative. Artsmad has been working hard to train advisors to support the Arts Award in Swindon and we are delighted that Commonweal School is the first centre in Swindon to enter young candidates for the Arts Award.” commented Kirsty Carter, Director of Artsmad.

Jessica Hughes, aged 13, goes down in Swindon’s history as being the first student to complete her bronze award. Her work involved writing and singing a song and leading an art class to come up with a design for an album cover. “I enjoyed doing the bronze and am now starting to do my silver. Josie my adviser is helping me to find out about writing for radio. I am used to research as I have done my bronze. It is good fun and it has helped me with my literacy skills.”

The Arts Award is a national qualification which recognises how young people aged 11-25 develop as artists and arts leaders. It is a QCA qualification and sits on the National Qualifications Framework at levels 1, 2 and 3.

The award is a personalised learning programme which develops and assesses both arts-related skills (arts knowledge and understanding) and transferable skills (creativity, communication, planning and review, teamwork and leadership). It is assessed through a portfolio of evidence created by the young person which can be presented in ANY format.

Advisers are key to the success of the award, as they act as catalysts, mentors and internal assessors for young people. Most advisers are already working with young people – as artists, arts teachers, youth arts facilitators or youth workers. Being an Arts Award adviser offers a useful framework for arts activities and projects with young people, as well as providing motivation and recognition for young people’s achievements.

Ali Sutcliffe, Head of Music at Commonweal and Josie Williams, Community Arts Development Officer are two of the schools advisers. Roy Nevitt came into school to moderate the students work. “The two advisers had thoroughly prepared and sufficiently inspired the young people so that a good standard for bronze was achieved. The group I met spoke eloquently about their experiences in going for bronze and some of them enjoyed the challenge enough to have already embarked on silver. I was particularly impressed by one boy, from the school’s P.I unit ( Physically Impaired) He uses a wheelchair and together with several others from the unit, has created a band, whose impressive sound I listened to on their CD. The band overcomes all physical impairments and thrills audiences with its various gigs. To conclude Commonweal is a very good centre which manages the scheme very well.”

To find out more about how you can get involved with the Arts Award as a young person or an advisor, contact Gill at the Artsmad office on 07824 550392 or visit www.artsaward.org.uk

As part of our commitment to families in the wider community we held a free family a cappella singing workshop at Commonweal School on Saturday June 16 th. The workshop was supported by Swindon Family Learning and Artsmad and was a wonderful opportunity for families to book out some quality time together. Generations shared skills and had fun. Singing is a great way to improve physical and spiritual wellbeing and I believe music feeds the soul.

The workshop was aimed at KS2 and KS3 students and family and we had five families in attendance. The workshop was led by Liz Terry who trained as a Community Music Tutor after an inspiring two year musical trip around the world. She is a singer who teaches harmony songs from many different countries and in a variety of styles. Liz works with the belief that everyone can sing, working as a freelance practitioner on many Arts in Education Projects. She is presently coordinating a performance based project in eight Gloucestershire primary schools for the Cheltenham Music Festival. Liz runs a singing group called Sing Your Heart Out and has twelve years teaching experience. She has performed with a cappella singing groups, Naked Voices, and various bands throughout her career. Everything is taught by ear in an informal and relaxed way.

A cappellamusic is vocal music or singing without instrumentalaccompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. A cappella is Italian for "in the style of the chapel", and was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissancepolyphony and Baroqueconcertato style. In the 19th century a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists lead to the corruption of the term to mean unaccompanied vocal music.

Salto came into school this term to deliver a dance workshop and performance to a mixed ability group. “Thank you for having us. It was a great experience for Salto! and your students were lovely – very appreciative. The students are a credit to Miss Blake.” Jim Brown, Swindon Dance.

 Salto! Integrated Dance group was formed in February 2006 by Jim Brown, Senior Education & Access Officer at Swindon Dance. Open to any adults (over 16) with or without disabilities, Salto! meet weekly in term-time to create high quality dance for

performance in Swindon & Wiltshire. The main aim of the group is to provide physically disabled adults, with a keen interest in dance, the opportunity to work creatively alongside their care workers and dance students in the community and make original, high quality dance.

Salto! has worked on their current piece ‘Rising Stars and Fallen Idols’, since September. The piece explores the volatile world of ‘Celebrity’ and focuses on the birth of youth culture through Rock n’ Roll in the 1950’s. Salto! were delighted to be invited to Commonweal School to lead a workshop with Year 9 & PI students, followed by a performance of their piece.  Judging by the wonderful

reception from the students, Rising Stars and Fallen Idols is an outright success and we look forward to their next visit to Commonweal School.

Old Town Festival concert in the bowl on Saturday June 23 rd was a cracker! Sadly the rain prevented our dance groups from performing but the Music Dept stepped in and our rock bands played for three hours! They all performed brilliantly, were dressed for the part and their stage presence was excellent. The Alfonz who left in May are making their mark on the gigging circuit and currently have 15 gigs booked and Steamin’ Nina aren’t far behind them with performances in the community including the New College fete this month.

Commented Brian Mattock, Chair, Old Town Festival Committee. “ Many thanks indeed for the list of music played by the bands in The Bowl last Saturday.  

“More importantly, I would like to express my grateful thanks and the appreciation together with the whole Festival committee for the time, professionalism, skill and commitment of all members of the bands that played that afternoon.

“Those who attended the afternoon all thoroughly enjoyed themselves but it was a great shame that we were interrupted by the rain. The fact that so many people stayed throughout that downpour was a further expression of their appreciation.  

“My thanks also to you and your colleagues for organizing the afternoon. It was great to see that we have so much musical talent in Old Town, a great credit to the Commonweal School . Please pass on our thanks to everyone involved. “

Thanks to Nick Weaver for his time and effort in making this an astounding success!

Commonweal Showcase, The Bandstand, Town Gardens, Sunday 1 st July. This event was cancelled due to bad weather.

Reach’s partnership with Commonweal is really buzzing with life and enjoying a mutual sharing of ideas and resources. Pupils working with Heather Birkbeck on the ‘Finding a Voice’, confidence building sessions using drama exercises recently visited The Wyvern Theatre, Studio One, to take part in drama games with ‘Partners Theatre Company’. The first session was a great success and it was suggested that a repeat visit would take place. The first session was filmed and will be available shortly to view on the school web site.

More projects are due to follow next term with some joint workshops between Reach, Commonweal and Churchfields schools. These will focus on Gambian Drumming with a session at The Wyvern. The participants will devise a short performance to be presented to the two participating schools.

Partners Theatre Company took a year off from touring to concentrate on developing their skills and to provide a series of workshops. However, the group will be ‘back on the road’ next autumn with another issue based drama ready to support the school curriculum and, in particular, raise the profile of disability issues within the school communities. Helen Whelehan from Reach Inclusive Arts

 Extra News From the Music Dept.
Clubs update:

Concert band and choir – going from strength to strength despite losing some members of year 11. Preparations are underway for the Commonweal Celebration Day on Saturday 7 th July.

String group - numbers are increasing and rehearsals are taking place for performances in the community including Celebration Day.

 Junior band – Rehearsals will be moved to a Thursday after school from September in order to allow KS2 students from feeder primary schools to join the band.

Jazz bands – now we have lost Year 11 the junior jazz band has grown dramatically and it is really thriving. Senior jazz did their final gig at the Polo Ground on June 17 th in aid of the local RSPCA charity, they went down a storm! Junior jazz will be performing at the Celebration day.

 School production 2008!!!!! Plans are afoot to do a whole school production of ‘Little Shop Of Horrors’ in July 2008. In preparation for this a trip is planned to take students to see the West End show in July.

Courtesy of our Performing Arts budget Kaya Drumming were able to go into Lethbridge Primary School on 13 th June. This was really well received, we await feedback in the not to distant future.

Update on music outreach projects from Helen Pysanczyn

1. Composition

This project has continued to be enthusiastically accepted by the students in all schools. Pupils have written stories and made puppets and are composing music to accompany their stories. Nick has gone in to Even Swindon school to record the end product

2. Drum lessons

Take up and movement into paid tuition continues to be successful here

3. Woodwind lessons (Robert Le Kyng only)

Take up and movement into paid tuition continues to be successful here

4. Brass lessons ( King William Street only)

These lessons have not continued this term due to no students coming forward for the taster sessions. The teacher has done two ‘demonstration’ sessions (in assembly in his own time) but there has been no follow up by the school. Having met the Head, he has sent out a letter offering tuition on all instruments but did not specify that brass could be tried ‘free’ for two terms. A further letter is to be sent (from HP via the school) explaining this in order to encourage brass tuition.

5. Guitar lessons (St Lukes only)

Tuition continues at St Lukes. The school has requested 2 hours tuition for next term which will continue to be delivered by Steve Curtis.

6. Extra Curricular Singing (Even Swindon only)

The production of The Lion King will take place this month and the input from Debbie will be evident.

Helen’s view on the music projects

• As reported in May, the music projects have run their course and will therefore change from September. Ali and Helen will undertake the outreach work in primary schools; Andre will return to St Lukes to teach song-writing and composition (a role that has been undertaken by Nick Weaver for the past 2 terms); Laurie Parkinson will continue to teach brass at King William Street; Rhonda Towner will resume woodwind teaching at Robert Le Kyng (a role she has been supported with this year by Laura Styles due to demand); Steve Curtis will continue guitar tuition at St Lukes and his time will increase to 2 hours; Ashley Pullen will continue drum tuition at Even Swindon and St Lukes (time to increase to 2hours) & Doug Mussard will continue tuition at Robert Le Kyng and King Willam Street.
• My role will change somewhat to a quality assurance role alongside a liaison role with the music Co-operative and other non-Commonweal staff involved with the music projects.

Extra News from Dance Department

Guatemala Dance Company Momentum
Friday 25 th May

15 year nine students who will be doing GCSE dance next year, attended a fantastic lecture demonstration and performance by contemporary Dance Company from Guatemala, Momentum. Hosted by Swindon Dance, the students attended this event which was organised for Swindon school groups and region dance artists, teachers and choreographers.

The students learnt about the cultural and historical background to Guatemalan dance, and watched two pieces by the Company.

‘We really enjoyed the two performances; they were interesting and brilliant inspiration.’

‘The dancers themselves were very professional and quite friendly.’

‘I thought the performance was excellent. The costumes that they used were colourful and interesting.’

‘In attending the dance we also learnt a lot of new things about the people of central America.’

Ricochet dance workshop
Wednesday 17 th April

Ricochet Dance Company delivered a one hour dance workshop for all year 10 GCSE dance students. The workshop focused on improving choreographic and performance skills. This was a fantastic opportunity for the first cohort of GCSE dance students to work with professional artists, gain insight into the ways in which they work, and ask questions about training and the life of a dancer.

Youth Dance Academy

Three students from KS3 attended a Youth Dance Academy open day. Youth Dance Academy is a DFES funded scheme for gifted and talented dancers in the south west region, run by Swindon Dance. The students had been nominated for the Academy by the dance department, and were able to take part in dance classes and find out more about the scheme. As a result of the open day two students have been invited to apply for the Academy and one student has been invited to apply for the Youth Talent Programme at Swindon Dance.

Extra Curricular clubs

Two new dance pieces have been created by year seven dance club working intensively with year 8 students:

Beccy Clarke and Chloe Daws (Year 8) have worked with all members of 7 dance club to create a group section to a duet they had choreographed using inspiration from a unit of work they had done in PE lessons. This will be performed at the Summer celebrations.

Polly Cleaver in Year 8 has been working with a small group of year 7’s to create a short dance based on the theme ‘summer’ to be performed at the summer celebration. Polly has been working with props in this lively and inspiring dance.

Youth Dance Club – Eloise Harding, an exceptionally motivated Yr 11 student, supported by Hannah Pearce Yr 10, has again this year ran a successful club for the dance department. Eloise has choreographed two performance pieces one for the Evening Entertainment, last Autumn, and the other for the Summer Celebrations. The girls are working with a group of 20 Yr 8 & 9 students.

GCSE students have been adapting and rehearsing dances from earlier in the year to perform at the Summer Celebrations, including group choreographies and solos.

Year 6 Dance Club

The group have finished creating a dance based on’ journeys’ to be performed at the summer celebrations. The dance includes duets that have been created by the year 6’s themselves, as well as group sections that they have learnt. It is hoped that next year the students that have participated will continue in extra curricular clubs at Commonweal.

News from Polly Long, Sports Co-ordinator

‘BOOST’

On the 3 rd of July the recording of the Swindon Schools Sports Partnership Primary ‘BOOST’ DVD will be taking place at The Commonweal School. The ‘BOOST’ DVD is for the primary schools to use during the day as a brain and body activity resource to allow for the brain and body to heighten their learning experience. The DVD will be rolled out throughout Swindon’s primary schools from September and complimented with workshops by pupils from Churchfields and Commonweal.

Involved in the production of the DVD were some of Commonweals pupils, Nick Weaver, Louise Blake, Caroline Jarvis. A big thank you to all who are involved.

Multiskills

This term has seen the primaries getting involved in numerous festivals. The festivals that have taken place this term are; Kwik cricket, Multi skills, Athletics, Orienteering, Hockey and the youth games. Pupils from Commonweal’s feeder schools have been represented at all of these events. Well done to the participants.

Extra News from Heather Birkbeck, Head of Drama

The Witches – R Dahl

Students have been working since October on a production of The Witches by R. Dahl and will be performed on Thursday 12 th and Friday 13 th July in the school’s main hall. It is a technical challenge, with puppet mice, explosions and witches with faces half human/half witch!

Swindon College – Creative and Media have been brought in to help add more magic with make-up. Ben Owen, the ex Head of Art at Commonweal is creating the set with the help of some of the Caretakers, Jack, Bob, Barry and Trevor. Noreen Bint has taken on responsibility for props and puppets. Debs Browning is producing. Music has been adapted by Nick and Year 11 students.

Heather Birkbeck is directing and it has been a challenging play. Hopefully, the technical sides will work. It may turn out to be the most expensive production since “Bugsy”. Students range from 11 to 15 years old and have been full of enthusiasm throughout.

The Spells Workshop – Outreach

Heather Birkbeck has worked for over two months with Even Swindon to create performance poetry based on Modern Day Spells. This is to link in with the Celebrations Day when Commonweal students will perform extracts from The Witches.

The ‘Spells’ workshops have been going very well. Students have written their own pieces of performance poetry and are now going to work on skills to perform them. All students in Year 6 have had access to this work. Three Year 10 Drama students have assisted Heather Birkbeck with the workshops.

Finding a Voice

This year, I worked with a group of our students who were seen as disaffected. It was a positive experience for both the students and myself. We used drama as a vehicle to express how they felt about school and themselves.

I have always been interested in students who try to keep themselves as low key as possible (or as invisible) but I felt they were needing the same amount of encouragement and support as those who were visibly disaffected.

I asked for tutors and Heads of House to nominate students who might benefit from working with me on raising their confidence in speaking out. I wanted to focus on a quiet group this year.

To enhance this work, I went on a course run by the Psychotherapist and Counsellor Nick Luxmore. Mary Holder also attended the course and was impressed by his approach. He’s written work such has “Listening to Young People in School, Youth Work and Counselling”. His workshops were intensive and made me revise my approach to how I would work with these girls. He offered lots of practical approaches which both Mary and I could identify with. He had an in-depth understanding of what was required to get a student to feel comfortable with you.

Within a Drama Workshop, as with a counselling session, it is important to get the balance right between being warm and being boundaried; kind but not a pushover.

Students may feel scared. It is important to make the sessions feel normal. It also helped that the Drama Studio was familiar to most students.

It is important to give the student choices. A frightened person needs to feel in control of the situation. Nick stressed it sometimes helps to talk to a young person as if they are slightly older and that it is important to respect a persons’ defences, however bizarre or unpleasant. They exist for good reason.

I went on to use some of the activities from the course – for example, I wanted the girls to see some of the positive images others had of them and to encourage them to talk about themselves. Simple activities like they draw around the shape of another person’s head on sugar paper and then encouraged to write positive comments on each other. The girls were then left with an array of positive comments around their image. To deepen this, I asked the girls to write other comments they felt had not been said. It might be a different view of the way others’ see them. Not everyone can express themselves with words, but it’s important to end on a positive and one thing they enjoyed so I asked the girls to bring in images of things that reflected how they felt about the world and themselves.

We have linked with Partners (Reach) Theatre Company, a group of actors, some with disabilities such as being profoundly deaf or who had Downs Syndrome. We went to visit the Wyvern and work with them. The girls worked on trust exercises, drama games and Forum Theatre where the emphasis was upon building their confidence to express what they wanted, even if it was against what the majority wanted.

It was sensitively led by Liz from Reach. The Actors and girls were fully involved and worked enthusiastically together. It was supportive and thoughtful.

The next session on Monday will be led by the girls and myself. We have worked together for five months, and in therapeutic terms, “a little can be a lot”.

Coming soon….

 Yr Children’s University at Commonweal, delivered by Commonweal staff takes place from 30th July – 3rd August.

Commonweal Clubs Roadshow is on 6th & 7th September. This is a chance for students to see what is on offer and sign up for an array of interesting and challenging clubs.

Top guitarist Gordon Giltrap comes into school on Saturday September 29th to deliver an afternoon workshop with students, parents and staff and also a concert in the evening. Tickets are on sale now priced £10 adults, £8 concessions, £6 children. The Arts Centre are selling the tickets for us tel 01793 614837.

."