Performing Arts

   Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2025, and welcome your input:

Penelope Lang (Performing Arts) penelope.lang@education.vic.gov.au 

Wominjeka!

Welcome to Term 1, 2025

Happy New Year and welcome back to school. I hope you all had a wonderful Summer holiday doing lots of exciting things and creating some great memories with your children. I spent some time in NSW visiting my family and finally got to the see the musical, 'Hamilton'. It was incredible. 

I am very excited to be back teaching Performing Arts, this year on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This is a NOT a school production year (that will be in 2026) so our lessons this year will be spent exploring other elements of The Arts curriculum. We will still have our end of year whole school Christmas concert which will be on Thursday 4th December. Pop the date in your diary now.

All students spent their first lesson with me discussing and unpacking our School Values. We talked about what respect, resilience and responsibility look like and sound like in the Performing Arts room. Our SWPBL matrix is on display in our room. We agreed on these things:

RESPECT

"Treat our instruments, props and dress ups carefully"

"Encourage people to be brave and don't laugh at them"

"Listen to each other and be patient if you have to wait to perform"

"Use our talk moves and try not to shout out"

"Show respect to our big mirrors"

"Use whole body listening"

"Be aware of people's personal space. Don't poke people"

"Line up quickly and quietly for our PA lessons"

"Treat people how you would like them to treat you"

"Give proper claps to say 'well done'"

RESILIENCE

"Don't give up and bounce back when things don't go your way"

"Listen to feedforward"

"Remember....I can't do it YET"

"You grow when you have a go"

"It is Ok to make mistakes"

RESPONSIBILITY

"Put things away before we leave the room at the end of the lesson"

"Focus on the task we are doing"

"Move safely around the room"

"Wait calmly and quietly before each lesson"

Our focus this term is on what it means to be 'responsible for your own learning'. I am encouraging students to develop strategies for becoming 'unstuck' when they find themselves stuck in their learning. I have been reminding students about what a focussed learner looks like and sounds like and encouraging them to identify what helps them to work to their full potential.

I also asked all classes to contribute to the music playlist on the school bell. The challenge however was that they had to do this in small groups and agree on two songs only. This certainly required a lot of negotiation and created a deeper understanding of 'personal tastes' in music. It was a very fun task. 

VSSS 2025

I am excited to announce that our 16 dancers have now been selected for the VSSS and we will start rehearsals hopefully in week 5. I will be setting up a 'VSSS 2025' Google classroom page and successful applicants must join this page in order to secure their spot. I will be announcing the 2025 participants next week and will then send an invite to the page. Due to insufficient applications for VSSS Choir it is unlikely that we will participate in the mass choir this year. More information about this will be communicated next week after I have finalised our numbers. 

Instrumental Lessons

At the end of this page is information about our school's Instrumental Program that is run by Groove Foundations. We offer lessons on most instruments and have an outstanding team of musicians who deliver this program to over 100 students. The first 'trial' lesson is free of charge and your child will get the opportunity to perform in an end of year instrumental concert if they want to. You also have the option of choosing a lesson during the recess breaks if you would prefer that your child is not taken out of his or her class lessons. Feel free to contact Jordan Scotney who would be happy to answer any of your questions.

School Choir - Tuesdays

This year, the Junior and Senior choirs will meet during the 3rd recess break on a TUESDAY as follows:

JUNIOR: - Weeks 3, 5, 7, 9

SENIOR: - Weeks 4, 6, 8, 10

Junior Choir is open to students in years 1 and 2 and Senior Choir is open to students in years 3 to 6. If your child has never done choir before, they are welcome to come along for a session to try it out before they commit to the Semester. If they wish to stay in choir then it is very important that they bring along a plastic wallet or binder with pockets so that they can collect the lyric sheets for the songs we are singing. Both choirs will have the opportunity to perform at various assemblies throughout the year. I will notify you in advance if your child is singing.

Dress-up Costumes - Donations required

Thank you SO MUCH to the very kind parents who dropped some dress up costumes into my room. I am still very keen to continue building up our collection, especially small dress-ups (sizes 3 to 6) that would fit our Foundation students. If you have any in your playroom at home that you no longer use, I would LOVE to take them off your hands. 

IN OUR PERFORMING ARTS ROOM

Foundation

This Semester, the students in Foundation will be able to experience all aspects of The Arts curriculum as they explore elements of music, dance and drama. I am looking forward to exploring their beat and rhythm skills, introducing them to percussion instruments and developing their confidence and creativity through drama games, imaginary play, singing and moving to music. The students spent the first lesson with me familiarising themselves with our room and chatting about all the fun things we will get to do when we meet each week. We did a beautiful Acknowledgement of Country with actions and then each student had the opportunity to sing their name to me as I marked the role. We definitely have some budding rockstars amongst us! We talked about our school values and what these look like when we visit our creative space. We finished our lesson with a game of 'Rockstar' and it was great to watch them express themselves freely through dance.

Year One and Year Two

The students in these years will be exploring Music this Semester across four interrelated strands which include exploring, developing practices, creating and presenting. We will start by looking at the different elements of music, namely pitch, beat and rhythm and dynamics and will use the untuned percussion instruments to apply this knowledge as we create music together. We recently shared our experiences of music in different settings namely, at home, school, sporting events, shopping centres and even in nature. We used 'think, pair share' to unpack these ideas. We talked about the power of music to make us feel different emotions. My favourite comment was, 'Music makes me feel like I can do anything'. We revisited the African welcome song, 'Funge Alafia' and talked about the importance of music in other cultures and communities. 

Year Three and Year Four

The students in these years will be revisiting and expanding their knowledge of the elements of music. Students will work on identifying and describing how the different elements of music are used in music they listen to, compose and perform. We will be doing this with pitched and unpitched instruments. We have begun by exploring what music looks like, sounds like and feels like and shared personal experiences of music. I loved hearing about 'mum singing in the kitchen' as well as all of the songs used before sport matches as motivation. There were a few gasps (mainly from me) when someone asked, 'Who is Abba?' followed up with 'Who is John Farnham?'. We used the body percussion song, 'Green, Green, Grass' to improve our beat keeping skills and played 'Pass the Beat' to work on our music listening skills. 

Year Five and Year Six

The students in these years will be exploring the elements of music this semester and will also be learning how to read simple music notation and play pitched and unpitched instruments.  They will create individual and small group compositions and perform these in a informal and supportive class setting. They will also have the opportunity to research, prepare and present a Performing Arts poster project and more information will be provided about this later in the term. We have explored the places we hear 'music' and discussed the importance of keeping a steady beat. We played 'Pass the Rhythm' which required students to keep a repetitive rhythmic clap whilst 'hearing' the steady beat at the same time. We will continue to work on this.