NSB Choral Day

NSB's Choral Day, run alongside the renowned vocal coach and conductor Tom Edney, was a fantastic opportunity for students from a variety of ages and backgrounds across five schools to come together and enjoy a morning of warm-ups and vocal coaching, a fantastic lunch with opportunity to mix and engage with each other, before an afternoon rehearsal and performance to a large audience of parents, carers and members of the local community.

Aims

An opportunity for local schools to come together with their choirs or selected students, spend the day working with a locally-respected and well-known vocal coach and conductor to learn different singing styles, warm-ups and parts of songs before putting on a performance to their parents and members of the local community.

Critical factors for success include the performance element following intensive and enjoyable vocal sessions to start the day. The immediate beneficiaries of this are the students involved, though secondary beneficiaries include CPD elements for music leads from these schools.

Background

Choral Day has run annually at NSB for a number of years (minimum 12 years, but possibly much longer), but previously has only involved other independent schools (Westfield). This year, our aim was to enrich the musical education and experience for children from a wide range of areas, including those of less privilege than the majority of NSB's own pupil base.

This opportunity was developed and established by our Junior Music coordinator Susie Jones along with her Senior counterpart John Hopkinson.

Resources

The critical resource was the hiring of a fantastic vocal coach and conductor in Tom Edney. Other resources required were facilities (NSB's Senior School providing performance venue along with breakout spaces). Teaching staff involved from NSB were two music leads plus one teaching assistant for a total of 10 hours each, along with numerous admin and organisation hours in the run up to the event (minimum 20).

There is no financial contribution required from the other schools.

Impact

The impact was evaluated after the event by a form completed by staff with pupil input:

All schools enjoyed the whole day, found the organisation, teaching, learning, communication and facilities successful.

How much did pupils enjoy the day? 4.75/5 average

How much did staff enjoy the day? 4.75/5 average

All four schools very likely to attend future Choral Days and other events organised by NSB

 

Testimonials:

Pupils

"I loved it so much, I even went that very night to sing again with the choir in town. I was tired but so excited to do it, I had the best day."

"I didn't know I could sing like that. Being part of the day made me feel proud of myself and my school."

"I really enjoyed the day, particularly having the chance to be out of school and to sing all day, rather than just a lunchtime or after school rehearsal. I'd love to do it again."

 

Staff

"Congratulations to everyone for doing such a wonderful job putting on such a successful music event!!! The choral day did exactly what it set out to do. Everyone did a fabulous job, and the smiles on kids faces said it all. This was such a wonderfully different experience for our children, they don't get the opportunity very often to come together as a group of schools and sing. It was inspiring to hear their voices from 7 to 18 all joining together in a harmonised performance. Thank you to everyone involved for putting this day on and thank you especially to Susie for thinking of us as a school who could be involved. We all had an incredible time and I was blown away by all the children- the confidence they had will stay with me for a very long time. Here's to the next one!"

 

"An inspirational day that enabled the children to build and grow in confidence, not just in singing but collaborating with others in new experiences. The whole day led to both children and adults feeling proud."

 

"The day was really well organised and pitched just right: a good range of music - accessible to all but also challenging and engaging for those with more musical experience. Tom is a first class choral leader and managed to engage the collective young people with good humour and inspiration. Thank you so much for hosting - definitely a repeater!"

Pupil Involvement

Ages ranged from 7 to 18, and were mixed in gender. NSB provided both Junior and Senior choirs, whilst each other schools brought children from a variety of age ranges, totalling 65 children.

Frequency

This event occurs annually currently, and we are keen to continue into the future and look to grow the schools participating in coming years. It is likely to continue for many years to come.