A Sixth-Former’s View by Amy Charlesworth, Co-Musical Director:

Whilst being at the opposite end of the experience to the mainly KS3 and KS4 students taking part in ‘The Lion King’, I have seen the growth from students being shy and quiet to being confident and wanting to show off their talent. The progress, so far, has been brilliant. We began with just one song as both our warm up and a song from the actual show. Starting with ‘The Circle of Life’ we’ve progressed from including actions to learning the whole song which includes harmonised parts!

We are incredibly impressed by the way students have managed to learn six parts; mostly because this will be the first time that some students have been in a school production and the first time that they have sung harmonies. The enthusiasm keeps growing and growing, and in some people, you can really see their understanding of the songs and characters through both voice and movement.

This cast is really starting to work together and in the weeks coming I expect to see people coming forward for solos and small group parts, to show off their amazing talent!

A Year 7 Perspective: By Hannah Welsh

The preparations for the upcoming school production ‘The Lion King’ are at full-swing. For the past six weeks the hand-made masks, and shadow puppets on the first Wednesday that it was introduced, have been created by the willing and determined students from years 7-10. (You may have already been informed on the next subjects that are going to be mentioned from past blog up-dates but…) here is another view…

Every Wednesday students have been going into the Making Room after school to make masks. We used templates to start the basis for our creations. With these templates we drew round them onto cardboard and cut them out. After sticking them together with hot glue we added horns, eyes, ears and colour (depending on what mask we decided to create). With the superb help of Mr Peecock we have been able to create gazelles, lion cubs and hyenas. He has used his amazing artistic skills to also create a zebra, a male lion with an amazing mane and a lion head-dress. Without his help we would not have been able to create any of this.

The songs for the ‘Lion King’ production are also being learnt by willing students every Tuesday after school and Thursday lunch time. It is going really well and with the help of some sixth formers we have managed to learn some amazing songs. Thanks to Ms Stephens and the sixth formers ( Amy, Rob, Tom, Izzy and Blu) for giving up your time to make this all possible.