Last academic year the Creative Arts Faculty had the opportunity to pilot a year 9 Arts Award accreditation group. Throughout the academic year the students have had one lesson a week which focused upon developing their knowledge, understanding, enthusiasm and interest in the Arts. They have experienced live theatre in the west end, Nottingham and at school. They worked collectively with our fantastic year 8 orchestra to produce their own musical theatre performance of the west end show Matilda. The students all took responsibility for different aspects of the show; some played lead acting roles, some were chorus members, dancers, singers, lighting technicians, sound engineers, stage managers, back stage hands, costume designers, choreographers and directors. The students took real ownership of the performance and worked extremely hard to create and produce an hour long performance which was shared with local trust and feeder primaries, a selected year 7 audience and to their families, friends and staff.
One parent in the audience said, ‘It was like a full west end show! She really enjoyed herself and was just amazed at what the students had put together.’
‘I thought the whole performance was absolutely brilliant, and knowing how difficult the music is to play it is even more impressive. When I heard the Rushey Mead orchestra for the first time last year I thought it couldn't get any more impressive, but seeing the orchestra playing, while the choir sang, and the students acted and danced, was absolutely incredible - a real credit to you all.’
We had some fantastic results for the arts award and the students should be very proud of the work they produced.