On the afternoon of May 22nd, 9 members of our orchestra's outreach Ensemble had the pleasure of joining two classes at Godstone Village School to work with the children of years 3 and 4 and their music specialist teacher.
We wanted to introduce our instruments, which were actually many more than 9 as several people were changing over to other instruments they can play. In addition the idea was to share the sense of fun which can be experienced when playing music together in a group.
All the children joined in with hand percussion to accompany some of our existing repertoire and one young lady even showed her talent as a conductor for a march.
The main activity with both classes was to work together with us to be able to perform together 5 verses of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Variations. (Arranged specially for our visits to primary schools by David Bellwood of Music by Arrangement) The children and their teacher had been practising before our visit and had ranks of glockenspiel players, together with tambourine and triangle players ready. There were also beginner recorder players.
Both classes achieved great success so that we had two different and large ensembles ready to play this piece to the rest of the school during their music assembly at the end of the afternoon.
Our grant from the Hazelwood Community Fund helped with this event too, as it paid for the Twinkle Twinkle music, donated a jar of 40 egg shakers and there is also a set of combi hand bells on order for the children to use next term . All to support the school in the development of its music curriculum.
Thank you Hazelwood School Community Fund and GVS! Well done indeed!