Quarry Mount at Quarry Mount, Springbank at Springbank

I hate going out of chronology, and I have missed two schools gigs. Here's putting amends.

 Quarry Mount, in waiting

One of the best things about teaching in primary schools is the summer term. By this time all of the classes know all their chords, all of their djembes rhythms, stay in time with each other, can sight-read the Foxwood Songsheets and much more besides. And schools know how to set up before I arrive so they becoming independent as I try to make myself redundant!

 

And they do concerts and summer fairs and stuff like that for parents and for the public. And on this blog, I don't count assemblies but I do count any events in which parents and/or other members of the public are invited.

 

 

Quarry Mount in waiting

So Quarry Mount's International Evening was on Thursday 21 May. Bex and I teach Sparrows, Steelettes and East Steel on Thursdays at City of Leeds. As I share this role with Bex, at precisely 6.30, I shot away from the night-classes, down the road, into the primary school, where Dale and the gang had set up pans and glocks. I saw the end of the break-dancing, leapt into the performance area, launched into In the Hall and Coming Round the Mountain. Back before I even left.

Springbank in waiting 2

 

Springbank in waiting 1

Two weeks later on 3 June Springbank invited in its parents to the concerts at the end of a Wednesday afternoon. We played Mice and Monsters, I Gave My Love a Cherry Drunken Sailor, Camptown Races, In the Hall of the Mountain King.

 

Ruby and her gang organised everything, choosing the tunes, arranging one of them, setting up, and writing lists, all that stuff

 

 

And then here comes the very worst thing about the summer term - I have become attached to every single Year Six, and they are all about to leave.  I hope to meet them in their high schools; at least I hope they will continue with steel pans in their high schools. Sadly this is rarely the case.

 

concerts pics to follow permissions permitting

Thursday Friday goodbye to Blenheim and Spring Bank

On Thursday afternoon at 2pm I said goodbye to the delightful year Six at Blenheim as they played their last concert, joining in with Sophie's choir. It's the last week of the school year, and every little band in my steelpan Leeds world all sound good now. They sound musical; they work as teams; they play to their strengths; they have played to audiences who don't sit there squirming, but who may clap along and ask for more.

Don't have a pic of Blenheim classes so here's one of their pans.

"Parental choice" means that the year sixes of Hyde Park, Little London and Woohouse are being scattered around the different high schools in a long corridor from central to north Leeds starting with City of Leeds School, to Carr Manor, Lawnswood and Ralph Thoresby.  Sadly only two of these schools have pans [I'm working on it!], and only one has a dedicated steelpan room. So this great universal instrument that has let whole classes blossom is now closed to all but a handful.

At 2.30 I am 3 miles away sitting in the audience at Moor Allerton watching Al's lovely Year Sixes do their thing and take a bow.  Sounded ace. No pic of Moor Allerton so here's one of Al with his own band at the New Roscoe. By 3.15 I have criss-crossed Leeds again to pick up Lola from Kirkstall Valley School. And then back to panicking about how many players I'll have for the YMCA on Saturday [a late gig request dangerously inside the school holidays], and collecting  up the pans for who doesn't own their own.

Friday saying goodbye to Spring Bank, and reminding my little gang of boys who became Middle Steel that we will meet again [at West Park], and then, after ten years at City of Leeds School it's time to say goodbye again.