Normally, students from the Senior School visit St Rose’s in Stroud to share festive dramatic performances and musical interludes.
St Rose’s provides education, therapy and day and residential care for children and students aged 2 to 25, with a wide range of disabilities, including Autism.
Unfortunately, the current restrictions mean that we have been unable to visit in person this year. Not to let a little thing like a global pandemic get in the way of spreading our Christmas cheer, the students in Year 7 set about providing a video message to the staff and students at St Roses.
Several pupils at St Rose’s communicate through sign language and last year they performed a song for us using sign. We thought it would be a nice idea to reciprocate, and decided to learn how to sing Shakin’ Steven’s ‘Merry Christmas’ using British Sign Language. This was a great opportunity for our Year 7 students to develop some of the ‘Behaviours for Learning’ linked to the School’s High-Performance Learning initiative, in particular, their concern for society and community ethos.
As with all musical performances, they were also developing their practising skills, recognising that hard work and concentration culminates in a polished performance.
