What do you get when you mix together 160 primary school children, a handful of seasoned West End performers and Valentine’s Day? You get a magical, love-themed musical performance to delight an audience of happy parents.
St Joseph’s College Ipswich benefits from an exciting association with Arts International, which brings together stage and screen professionals with partner schools and works up its core four Cs – Confidence, Creativity, Collaboration and Compassion – in engaging workshops.
The latest of these at St Joseph’s College took place on Valentine’s Day and was centred on the independent school’s Year 5 girls and boys. The scale of the event was quadrupled by inviting youngsters from three other schools to take part.
Pupils from Hadleigh Community Primary School, Bucklesham Primary School and Trimley St Mary Primary School were delivered to St Jo’s by the College minibuses for a day of outstanding creativity and fun.
Working in mixed groups, where they soon struck new friendships, the boys and girls worked on love-themed numbers from various hit musicals. This was a challenging day for the children, meeting new teachers and learning to sing and dance for an audience of grown-ups and peers, but they coped magnificently.
Mrs Georgie Ross, Director of Performing Arts at St Jo’s, said, ‘This was another fantastic event with our partners at Arts International. Many of the pupils had never been on stage before and it was amazing to see them step out of their comfort zone, learn new skills in dancing and singing and then perform to a huge parental audience at the end of the day. St Joseph’s College offers many opportunities for pupils to
participate in the performing arts and we look forward to welcoming another group of local primary schools next year.’
The Arts International team on the day comprised Lucy May Barker, Adam Jacques, Laurie Scarth, Tom Dickerson, Luke Latch and Connor Lewis. After working up the various numbers with their groups, all came together in the College Chapel and performed a show for parents.
Luke closed the programme with a rendition of ‘Excalibur 93’ from ‘The Confession Room’. He held his audience with every line, as you would expect from a veteran of ‘Everyone is talking about Jamie’ and most recently ‘Sunset Boulevard’.
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