Festive Films - Winter 2020
Hello everyone and may I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as well as my best wishes for any other celebration you may be having at this time. I am Miss Walton, the music teacher at Hertford Junior School. Those of you who know the Hertford traditions will know that at this time of year HJS would normally be squeezing everyone into the hall; parents, carers, teachers and children, in order to sing our hearts, and this term, out.
This year we have been unable to do that, but I still had the aspiration to create something to share with our community of Hertford Schools. To me, the end of the Autumn term should be marked with a coming together of all the people who make our schools such wonderful places to work, play and learn. This is why I rose to the challenge, not knowing if it was possible, of recording each HJS class bubble singing outdoors, then filming them indoors and putting all the separate audio and video clips together to make a film. We also made artwork of stars and flickbooks, some of which are used in the film. We also managed to record audio and video of the children and staff at Hertford Infant School in one morning and we are thrilled that they were able to join in with our musical celebration video. Thank you to them and the HJS and HIANS staff who also stepped out of their comfort zones in order to join in the singing and silly video-making.
WE HAD NO REHEARSALS! Usually we are practising our songs in class every week as well as singing for half an hour every week as a whole school in singing assembly. This year we could only sing and record outside, following guidelines about covid safety and singing, so I had to record us straight away whenever we had dry weather!!! A very tricky job in Autumn! Recording outside had its own challenges with PE whilstles, PE classes, birdsong, low-flying aeroplanes and the wind...and the cold. You may hear some of these sounds in the background. All the letters for the 12 Letters of Christmas were written by year 5, Ash Class, in one lesson, with no time for editing or rewriting. This is why you will spot spelling errors a-plenty. Please forgive us our mistakes and oversights as we have done our absolute best, given the time and space limitations...this applies to the films as well. I have tried my very best to include every child at least once. If they are not in one film, you should find them in another film.
Most importantly, these films show that our schools are still a team that is working, growing, learning and playing together. We are celebrating our resilience in finding ways to overcome the difficulties that life throws our way. WE ARE STARS!!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!
