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Year 4 Gamelan & Shadow Puppetry Performances

4K Wednesday 26th April at 2.00 pm

4R Thursday 27th April at 2.00 pm

4M Friday 28th April at 2.00 pm

You may have noticed some strange-looking instruments  in our studio this year. These are part of a set of Slendro Gamelan, very old but recently acquired. Children at Woodside have already played Javanese Gamelan on a number of occasions; accompanying traditional Indonesian shadow puppetry in performances to parents in school, complete with Indonesian food and at the Junior Music Festival and Thurrock International Cultural Celebration. These were Pelog Gamelan which is played on 6 notes. The Gamelan set we have now are Slendro Gamelan and uses a pentatonic scale of only 5 notes. The music is therefore completely different but equally enchanting. However, the best thing about these particular instruments is that we have them on extended loan rather than just a few weeks and we should be able to give all our children the chance to play them and develop a regular playing ensemble.

This year our Gamelan performances have a different theme with the life of Alfred Russell Wallace. The connection is that Wallace lived in Thurrock but worked at natural scientist particular in Indonesia where Gamelan comes from. There is a line on a the map of Indonesia called "The Wallace Line" which marks the transition between Asian and Australasian animals. Wallace formulated his own theory of evolution independently of Darwin and the two shared their findings. Darwin published his Origin of Species in response to this and is the better known. Russel had his concrete house, "The Dell", built in Grays when he was expecting to become director of a museum of Natural History in London financing the building of it from sales of specimens he had collected.

Each year 4 class are presenting their own version of Wallace's story with Indonesian style shadow puppets and accompanied by the Gamelan percussion orchestra known as "The Venerable Enchanter".  Authentic Indonesian snacks will be served as is traditional and the audience sit wherever they like in front or behind  the shadow screen. 

Both the NEU (National Education Union) and the NAHT (National Association of Head Teachers) who represent the vast majority and primary school teachers and leaders, have  balloted their members and had resounding support for strikes, meeting  the high turnout criteria required. This in response to a derisory offer from the government, inexplicably less than that offered to Welsh or Scottish teachers, means that there will almost certainly be further strikes.  The NEU has named Thursday 27th April and Tuesday 2nd May as strike days and says it will re-ballot members for further action in May.

If teachers tell us they intend to  take strike action we may be able to restrict closure to those classes only, but teachers are not obliged tell us in advance. We know almost all of our teachers are in the NEU  but we are not allowed to ask specific staff if they are members. It is also possible for non-members to join the strike provided they are not in another union that has balloted unsuccessfully. We therefore have great difficulty in predicting which classes we could open. Please therefore assume that we will be closed on the above dates, and we will tell you that we can be open for your child, if and when we have that information.

The class pages on our website have plenty of appropriate activities for children to be able to continue their learning at home during this time.

If your child is entitled to  Free  School Meals (not just the Universal Free School Meals  that all infant children can have, but as a means tested benefit) then we will give you a voucher for £5 for you to provide two lunches.

We regret the inconvenience caused but also recognize that teachers' pay is significantly less in real terms than it was 10 years ago and they have a right to take this action after repeated union requests for a fairer settlement through other channels have failed.

We took 1st place in Thurrock for The Big Walk & Wheel, 2nd place in Essex, 15th in our region and 78th in the whole UK. Thank you for your support and well done to Mr Doye for making it happen. The Big Walk and Wheel started on Monday 20th March and finished at the end of the spring term but we are arranging bike rides for classes who missed out on "mystery rides" due to bad weather. The point of the Big Walk & Wheel is to encourage children to walk, scoot or cycle to school under their own steam rather than be brought in a car. The name emphasizes the importance of just walking and includes wheelchairs as well as bikes and scooters. We bought a new smoothie bike so that we can harness some of that pedal power to whizz-up fruit and vegetables into nutritious smoothies and soups and it was very popular. We planned mystery rides for children who cycled to school and other special activities. As always, there was a class competition to find the class that has the most walk and wheelers and we were competing nationally with other schools.  Please keep walking and wheeling for healthy children and a healthy planet.

We are pleased to say that we were able to supply food vouchers for families with children entitled to free school meals over Easter. We also hosted support in school for eligible children during the holiday and our kitchen is preparing the food for children similarly supported in other schools. We also ran our usual holiday workshops open to all year 6 children on Tuesday and Wednesdays for both weeks of the holiday.