It's the end of a another school year

It's that time again when we drag ourselves out to school to witness the great end of year show. Unfortunately it wasn't so great this year, In fact it was like pulling teeth and made me want to cringe in places.
Not Dear Son's parts though. Oh no if it's one thing he knows how to do well and that is put on a great performance in front of the crowds.

Its been a turbulent year for the School band, several of the year 11s gave it up to focus on their studies and they lost 2 music teachers within the year so there was no stability. I sense even DS himself was losing interest for a while but he kept on and through the determination of those left and one young yr 11 who worked doubly hard to see it through, they ended the year on a high.

The evening started with the band playing us in. The young girl who MC'ed was brilliant - she had great stage presence and a good sense of humour and timing. It is a shame the rest of the youngsters couldn't follow her example.
There was a poetry reading and a solo singer and a game style show maths quiz. This could have been a great idea but it fell on it's face as the kids involved just seemed to want to mess about. There was also a showing of a Yr 11 GCSE Media film which was OK. Oh there was the dreaded choir set. Luckily only 1 song in the first half. The young lad who I mentioned earlier that took over the choir was working so hard and was trying to be serious and professional but all these young whippersnappers wanted to do was giggle and do silly little dares. Their mums must be so proud.

The interval was only meant to be 10 minutes so that it didn't finish too late but it went on for 25 minutes. The second half was pretty much more of the same but we were treated to a round of "Who's line is it anyway?" Lucky that DS knew what he was doing and he held it all together. The rest of the group just giggled and looked at each other red faced.

When it came to the last performance of the band it dawned what a sad occasion it was. Especially for Bill's friend Emma as she had been with the band since it's formation 5 years ago and this would be her last performance.
Emma is the band drummer and a lovely gesture by the school means that she now has her own set of drums at home so she can continue.

I was so relieved when it finally ended and we managed to get home before 9pm.

As well as seeing DS perform this week, Tuesday I also got to see my nephew perform in a Dance event in the city. Lots of schools from all over the city put on performances to celebrate Derby6 Dance week. Its all part of a national sports and fitness program.

The event was £5 entry and doors opened at 9am so it was an early start. I met up with Debz in the queue.
We had kind of hoped that DN's school would be somewhere near the beginning of the program but guess what? His school was 3rd from the end so we got to see all the performances.

There was lots of styles of dance including Hip-hop, Jive, ballet, interpretive dance, creative dance, freestyle, Bollywood and a bit of cheerleading. We were treated to 4 lots of High School Musical including the same school twice. There was even a couple of excellent performances by the Royal school for the deaf.
I think the group that got the biggest cheer were a group of nursery children that did "ABC123" They were so cute and danced beautifully, it was truly a star performance.

I would say check out the photos here but they don't seem to have updated yet. That is no help of course.
We got out at around 12.30 into a very hot humid marketplace.

Dear Nephew was performing a traditional country dancing routine and he performed wonderfully. For 7 year olds they were very together.