10 December 2021
HEADLINES
By James Saunders
A WINTER WARMING WINTER CONCERT I am pleased to say that whilst it’s been a long time coming, we have finally been able to welcome families to Honywood to showcase the creative talent of our learners. On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of attending our Chrstmas concert. It was a more low key affair than usual as we are still mindful of the pressures of the pandemic. Whilst we may have had to restrict numbers, the one thing that was not affected was the quality and range of creative talent on show across all our cohorts. There was singing, dancing and dramatic performances aplenty. I would like to thank the wonderful Expressive Arts’ department for their support this week in preparing learners for the show. An event such as this is difficult to organise at the best of times, however, when the backdrop is a pandemic and there is uncertainty around whether the acts will all make it on the night, it is even more demanding. Thankfully we were able to pull the night off with no disruption and all the performers had an opportunity to show us what they can do. I would also like to highlight our youngest performers from our local primary schools who have been attending our primary learning club on a Monday. They did a great job performing alongside our learners. They certainly showed they have what it takes to become a Honywood learner. I have not had much opportunity to talk about the arts over the last 18 months. As I stated to families on Tuesday, the arts and creative industries have really taken a hit over the course of the pandemic. The entertainment industry that many of us take for granted has simply been unable to cope with lockdowns; I am sure you have heard about the many theatre closures and struggling musicians who simply cannot go out and perform. The message we often hear in education is that we must focus on getting learners to catch up.
However, there is a lack of clarity over what it is they need to catch up to. I would argue that the big catch up must surely be to fix the void that we have faced for far too long - a lack of access to the arts; to culture, and to creativity. If we are to turn around the decimation to the arts and creative industries we need our future generations to see these fields as viable opportunities that will offer them endless possibilities to explore their creative passion. That is the true catch up mission I feel we need to embark on. After witnessing the joy our young performers exhibited on Tuesday I am confident that we will soon be back to where we left off two years ago. We have our newest production “Back to the 80’s” currently in rehearsals for the new year. I am hoping that we can welcome even more families to this event and that our creative learners finally get to showcase their talents in an authentic way. LAUNCHING LEARNING REVIEW PROCESS NEXT WEEK Next week we shall be launching the learning review preparation process with all learners during their LS5 time. You will be aware that our learning reviews will be taking place at the start of term. These meetings will give parents an opportunity to talk with learning group leaders about how their child is progressing. Learners will be taking an active role in this meeting and will use their preparation time next week to complete the necessary reflection work to ensure that the meetings are valuable. Mr Smith has created an excellent set of resources that learning group leaders will be using. I have asked him to circulate these to families next week so that they are able to see what learners are doing and hopefully engage in the conversation of learning ahead of the review meeting.