The Music Department at The Wensleydale School & Sixth Form is always an area that is buzzing with engagement, excitement and creativity. It has been just over two years since I joined The Wensleydale School & Sixth Form as Teacher of Music and since then we have participated in six end of term concerts, six concerts within the community, competed in two Tournament of Songs competitions and held a concert in memory of our former music teacher, Kath Barker. This has resulted in us seeing well over 200 students participating in the performances, which is incredible! I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the parents/carers, students, staff and the local community for your continued support with all the school’s musical events. Without all of your support, we would not be able to offer these opportunities to our students and to continue to grow music in both the school and the local community.
Now that we have had a chance over summer to recover from our busy year of performing, both the students and I are eager to get back to rehearsing and preparing some fantastic music for our local community to enjoy. This year, we are gearing up ready to continue our hard work and to try and accomplish even more! We have already started this by introducing new ensembles to our existing lunchtime programme, which now means we have at least one musical activity running every day of the week. Both the students and I are excited to share with you what we are working on in the run up to Christmas and we would like to formally invite everyone to our Winter Concert 2019 on Thursday 19th December at 7:00PM in the school hall where we will be showcasing a range of wonderful and talented musical performances.
Since starting at The Wensleydale School & Sixth Form, one of my targets that I have set myself is to increase the number of students learning and playing instruments. This can sometimes be a challenge as it can be hard for students to gain access to instruments for a number of reasons. Fortunately for us, this should become easier, thanks to the Wensleydale Rotary Club and the support of the local community. The Wensleydale Rotary Club has started an instrument amnesty scheme throughout September to collect instruments for us. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Wensleydale Rotary Club for facilitating this as well as to the members of the local community who have kindly donated their unwanted instruments. With this opportunity, we are going to use these instruments to lend to students who want to learn to play them during school lessons, instrumental lessons and at home. This is a fantastic opportunity for our students and will be a huge help in our efforts to increase the number of instrumental players in our school and around our community.
Finally, we would like to put a call out for a local volunteer pianist who might be interested in accompanying one of our school choirs that rehearse at lunchtime (1:00PM – 1:40PM). If you might be interested in helping out, please email Joshua.hadfield@wensleydaleschool.net for more information.
Joshua Hadfield – Teacher of Music.
