Performing Arts

Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2023, and welcome your input:

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

Wominjeka!

Happy New Year...welcome to Term One! I hope you all had a very restful Summer break and enjoyed some time together creating holiday memories. 

I went to Wollongong in NSW to visit my family, visited lots of markets (I love shopping), went to the Australian Open and attended some arts events at the NGV, the Myer Music Bowl and the Melbourne Theatre Company. I also ate in a PINK cafe called Feekah! 

It has been GREAT to see all of our wonderful students again (some now taller than me!) and I am looking forward to many exciting learning opportunities this term....I have SO much to tell you!

State School's Spectacular 2023!!!

Thank you to everyone who expressed an interest in taking part in this year's VSSS, all 67 of you! Applications have now closed and we have 20 very excited singers and 16 ecstatic dancers who will start rehearsing very soon. I will send home more information regarding payment due and rehearsal dates. Please keep an eye open for these. Ms Oliver will be running the dance rehearsals on a Monday and I will be conducting the choir rehearsals every Tuesday. Rehearsals will start in the next couple of weeks.

Arts Centre Melbourne - First Call Fund Partnership

I am delighted to announce that our school has been successful in applying for funding to attend a variety of arts events at the Arts Centre Melbourne. They have a brilliant variety of dance, drama and media events on offer and this funding provides us with a wonderful opportunity for some of our school students to experience 'real life' creative performances. I have applied for several events and look forward to hearing if we have been given tickets (numbers to all events are limited). 

Our first event will be on Friday 31st March when we are off to see KING STINGRAY, a rock band from Arnhem Land. With a sound self-described as "Yolŋu surf rock", the band perform songs with lyrics in both English and Yolŋu Matha. Application forms will be sent home very soon.

Instrumental Lessons

 If you would like your child to start learning an instrument in 2023 please contact Jordan (details below) to arrange your free trial lesson. Jordan has a brilliant team of talented music teachers who can offer lessons in singing, violin (new), drums, keyboard, guitar, ukulele and Glee club. There are application forms near the front office and in my room. Feel free to pop in anytime to chat further.

School Rock Band

I am so excited to announce that we will be starting a school Rock Band this year. Application forms will be sent home very soon. In the meantime we are still looking for some donations of electric guitars and amplifiers. You might have something collecting dust in your garage that could be of use to us. Feel free to drop me an email if you think you can help. Band rehearsals will be on a Friday in sessions 5 and 6.

School Choir

Choir will be held every Thursday afternoon at 2.40pm in the Performing Arts room. Junior choir (Level 1and 2) will be held every even week and senior choir (Levels 3-6) will meet with me every odd week. I am just trialing this for a few weeks until I can confirm numbers. Your child can attend one trial session to see if they would like to commit. If they become a regular singer with our choir they will need to bring a Display Book so they can collect our lyric sheets and rehearse at home. If you have been offered a place in the VSSS choir it is an expectation that you are also part of our school choir.

NEVR Youth Concert - Hamer Hall

We have been given the opportunity to participate in the NEVR Youth concert at Hamer Hall on Monday 29th May. This is a fantastic opportunity for year 5/6 students (who love to sing) to join a large choir of primary school students in performing on stage at the prestigious Hamer Hall. More information will be sent home when I receive it.

Instruments of the Orchestra

Students in Levels 1 and 2 have been looking at instruments of the orchestra during Performing Arts. I was wondering if anyone in our community plays any instruments (strings, brass or woodwind) and would be happy to come and chat to and perform for our students? Please get in touch if that might be you. 

In the Performing Arts room:

Foundation:

The Foundation students have been having a wonderful time exploring the Performing Arts room. There is a lot to discover. This term we will be looking at music, dance and drama through a variety of songs and games. The students have been shown how to use their 'singing hands' to sing the class roll whilst pitch matching. They danced to the 'Steady Beat Rap' and discovered that some music has no beat! We used the Djembes to walk to different tempos and have started to develop 'mirroring' skills with our Balance Cards task. The students also learnt an Acknowledgment of Country using various Auslan signs.

Year 1/2:

This term the focus in Performing Arts for the Level 1 and 2 students is on the instruments of the orchestra. We have begun looking at the different families within the orchestra, namely strings, brass, woodwind and percussion. We watched the history of musical instruments in the Disney clip 'Toot, Whistle, Plunk Boom' and have begun to create Instrument Booklets to record our learning. The students had the opportunity to listen to a variety of instruments being played which led to discussions surrounding pitch and dynamics. We looked at stringed instruments and the difference between plucking and strumming. The Level 1 students explored different stick notation (ta, titi and Za) and played clapping games to re-enforce this learning. The students learnt an Acknowledgment of Country using various Auslan signs and enjoyed some relaxation and positive affirmation cards. We used some lemons during our Berry Street sessions to remind us about how incredible our brains are!

Year 3/4:

The Year 3/4 students will be unpacking some of the 'Elements of Music' this term including Dynamics, Pitch and Rhythm. We sang 'We had a Holiday' to practice our beat keeping skills and played the Ping Pong game to focus our fast thinking skills. The students were introduced to the music of King Stingray which led to rich conversations about Songlines and music as storytelling. We listened to King Stingray's cover version of the song 'Yellow' and identified a variety of instruments such as the banjo, clap sticks and the didgeridoo. Some time was also spent discussing and encouraging students to apply for the Victorian State School's Spectacular.

Year 5/6:

We had a busy first lesson back for the year talking about all the wonderful arts events that will be made available to the students this year (see above). The focus this term is on Music with particular emphasis on learning to read music and playing pitched instruments. We will be looking at the elements of form, texture and timbre and develop confidence through 'just play' where students can explore instruments at their own pace. The students were introduced to the sounds of Indigenous rock band King Stingray and and learnt about their hometown, Arnhem land, and the genre of Surf Rock. We discussed the song 'Treaty' and the work of Yothu Yindi and played the dance improvisation game, "Rockstar".