Concerts, Concerts & More Concerts!

From glockenspiels to ukuleles, and chords to ostinato, the Performing Arts area is busy!

Foundation Students

It’s been so wonderful to come back to work this term and get to know all of the fabulous Foundation students. We have spent the term looking at different sections of the orchestra. We used a range of percussion instruments, and we explored string instruments. We became ukulele players – the students have already mastered two chords! Next term, we’ll begin our dancing adventure around the world.

Grade 1 & 2 Students

This term we have been growing our music making skills. We revised how to read and play rhythm and pitch and we used glockenspiels and keyboards to play (and guess!) lots of tunes. Later on in the term we brushed up our ukulele skills and played along to pop songs, before we finally created a class band where the students got to choose which instrument they jammed along on!

Concert Next Term

As I’m sure your very excited child has informed you, after the holidays it's concert term! Each child will be given the opportunity to act, dance, sing and play along on stage. We will be preparing for this in class in term three, culminating with our live spectacular at Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar on Thursday 29th of August. More information will be sent home on Compass next term.

Grade 3 & 4 Students

At Fairfield PS, we are very grateful to have a community who values and supports Performing Arts. The Grade 3 and 4 students receive a biennial grant from the school council to participate in a circus residency. This year, we had two wonderful artists from Circus Nexus, Rich and Isaac, who came to teach us circus tricks. People ‘run away’ to join the circus for many reasons. Rich was an engineer who was fascinated by how closely entwined engineering and physics was to juggling and creating props for his fire tricks! Isaac started out as an occupational therapist who decided to use the fine motor skills found in circus artistry to help his clients. This is but a small intersection and demonstration on how what we learn in performing arts goes beyond the performative and academic.

Inspired, the children and I decided that we could use all that we have learnt to create the show ‘Cirque Revival’ (we were disappointed to learn that the name Cirque du Soleil was already taken).

Cirque Revival illustrated our school values of:

Respect: We ask for consent when performing tricks with our peers. Respecting every individual's strengths and celebrating diversity and body positivity. Listening and communicating effectively.
Excellence: We learn to be resilient and believe in our abilities. We practise our skills to overcome our difficulties. We understand that being excellent is not being the best but doing the best we can. We celebrate failure and learn how to embrace mistakes.
Creativity: We work in a team to create routines and sequences with the skills we have learnt. We listen to music and think about how it makes us feel and how to convey that message we hear to the audience using our routines.
Community: We work together as a troupe. We cheer for each other, we recognise that our friends are doing something brave on stage and we support them. We understand that the community in Fairfield is special and unique and that we can lean on each other and we let others lean on us.

Grade 3s and 4s I am so proud of you, you showcased all you have learnt in such a unique and beautiful way. The work was done not just in one night but through the term! Have a look at your photos!

We would like to thank the Fairfield community for supporting the circus skills artist-in residence initiative. We thank all the parents who supported us at the rehearsal and have an extra special thanks for Mike Cotter who made it happen by DJing on the night. We thank families who have supported the FPS Trivia Night over the years – the funds raised go towards this program, providing this opportunity for our children.

Grade 5 & 6 Students

Another special aspect about performing in Fairfield Primary School is the scaffolding which Keri and I provide in terms of our music curriculum. We plan our programs together with a strong focus on Orff and Kodaly practices.

The children start by learning chords and rhythm on a ukulele in Foundation and we add chords and introduce them to improvising with an ostinato (a repeated musical pattern that goes throughout a piece). This continues throughout their seven years and they continue playing in their class band but with more instruments, more independence and music which they have chosen themselves.

I am hopeful that they will showcase this in their production on the 29th November. Our 5/6 production is a fun affair!

Set & Prop Designers Needed

We are looking for volunteers for set and prop design. In fact, we welcome anybody who would like to share their talent with the children. Please use the form as an expression of interest.

Choir & Orchestra

Both our ensemble groups have been working hard to prepare for their ART FOR ALL performances next term. If you attended the Grade 4 concert, you will have seen a sneak preview of the kind of collaborations our amazing musicians are capable of – especially when they took to the stage to accompany the finale performance of ‘Lean on Me’. Watch the newsletter and Compass for more information regarding upcoming performances.

Grown Up Choir

Our performance of ‘Lean on Me’ was a soft launch for our FPS Grown Up Choir (other names could be Fairfield Accaparents, Pitch Please! and Drop-off Dreamers). We are recruiting members for two fun sessions at the Grandview Hotel on Sundays 25th August and 1st September. We are looking at singing together from 3 – 5pm.

We will then be performing a song voted by the children on 8th September at ART FOR ALL. Please sign up here for expressions of interest. No experience needed, just come for a sing, a drink and a laugh.

~ Keri Spence & Olivia Li, Performing Arts Teachers

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