Christmas is coming ....

...and we have just enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Concert which gave so much pleasure to audience,organisers and participants.  As usual, this was held in All Saint's Church, but, in a change from the more traditional carol service, this year's concert was a truly eclectic mix of song, dance, poem and instrumental. The choir and audience sang traditional Christmas carols and talented soloists gave us 'Ave Maria' and 'Say It Isn't So'. We were treated to a wonderful rendition of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' with a Year 9 student on vocals and the Year 10 instrumental group supporting her.  Year 10 and 11 Dance GCSE inspired with their colourful and creative choreography, individual instrumental performances on guitar and piano and, of course, the Shene School staff choir: all contributed to the evening's entertainment.  Indeed, as we left, the Reverend Louise was still tapping her heels and humming tunes to keep the mood alive!  Many, many thanks to everyone who attended so that the church was full; we were particularly pleased to see so many students there supporting their friends.  Many thanks too to the contributors who worked hard to practise for the show, and, of course, huge thanks to Ms Fairbairn and Ms Quinn Larkin for the work they put in to make the show such a spectacular success.
Another pleasing success for us was the annual Year 9 Ypres trip on Friday.  Students left Shene at 5am to make the long journey to Belgium, accompanied by Mr Tribe, Ms Barlow, Mr Cook and Ms Porter.  As ever, it was a long, cold but awe-inspiring trip and well worth the material discomforts suffered by the 21st century visitors to a 20th century memorial to one of the worst times in human history. The trip included a re-enactment of the Christmas truce of 1914, soldiers in role to explain life in the trenches, a trench meal (vegetable stew and a sausage which they ate standing up in the cold), and the laying of crosses in the Commonwealth cemeteries. An unusal element was the visit to a German cemetery at Langemark to contrast how the two sides commemorate their dead (the German mood is much more sombre and dark). At the end of the day, three students laid a wreath at the Menin Gate on behalf of Shene School. As ever, they behaved impeccably; this time, however, a unique event occurred. A Shene student was the only person to have ever, in all the tens of thousands of student visitors, been able to answer correctly the soldiers' question about the shape of the trenches and why they snake rather than lie in straight lines. The soldier said: "Your kids are fantastic and this is the only time that a pupil has answered that question correctly out of more than 1000 schools who have visited us".  Well done to  that student! I wonder if readers of this blog know this answer?