HEAD GIVES BIG BOOST TO PERFORMING ARTS

If you are in years eight and nine, you will probably know about Arts Week -the one week in July where Maths, Science and homework get pushed to the back of the teenage agenda and the Performing Arts take centre stage. However, all the work, preparation and visiting artists can't start without one man. Our Headteacher, Mr Gittins, plays only a part in the decision of what should happen in Arts Week. However, without him it is certain that Arts Week would not be the success it is. We decided to interview him to find out more about it. Even though he is not particularly artistic, he was very positive towards it. He said, "This is a classic opportunity for our pupils to delve into the arts and study them in depth. The Performing Arts is anything which allows you to express  yourself in a creative way".
"Students play a big part in the decision process," explained Mr Gittins. "Last year's theme was colour. I think that this was a learning experience for all of us. The theme 'Out of Africa' somehow ties in with this. I think it is a brilliant theme because it has such a rich  culture that we ought to learn about".

The Head has made a vast amount of improvements on last year's Arts Week, which was a first for the school. When asked about the improvements made to the 'Celebration of the Arts' Mr Gittins added, "The planning of the whole week is a whole lot better across the board. We have managed to arrange visits to Marwell Zoo for our Year Sevens - something that was not possible last year."

Both ourselves and the Head agree that the key to a successful and constructive week is for everybody to get  'stuck in', and most importantly to enjoy themselves.

"The trouble with Education," said a concerned Mr Gittins "is that the Arts is generally under-valued. The aim of Arts Week is to change that". When we asked about Arts Week 2000, the head replied "I have no idea about next year's Arts Week. What I am sure of is that next year's will be even better than ever".
We have a hunch it will be about the Millennium!

An Inside View

For the first two hours of the day I worked on drama.At first I wasn't too sure whether I would enjoy it. It seemed strange compared to the normal school day. However, I soon relaxed into it. Our group was working with an African artist who was very interested in drama. For the first hour of the day he was telling us about Africa and the African way of life. He talked about things like African animals, food and a host of other things about African culture. After telling us about his upbringing, we got into groups of five. He gave each group a large piece of paper and asked us to do  three tasks. These were writing a list of African animals, of African food and for us to draw a rough map of Africa and try to label it the best we could. This helped us to focus on what we knew already about the continent which was quite a lot in the end!

After we had finished that task, we did something very different to the sort of thing we would usually do in a drama lesson. He taught us how to  make an African head shawl and gave each group a piece of material, from which to make the shawl. Making the shawl was fairly straightforward, but it was a good way of teaching the class about African clothing. Once each group had made the shawl, he picked three members of the class to came up to the front. He picked two boys and one girl and asked each person to dress up in African clothing. This caused great amusement. as you can imagine!