Getting ready for carnival in Stoke Newington

The Procession - Sunday 8 June StokeFest 2008

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If you'd like to find out how we got on with the carnival procession then go to the special carnival blogspot - it's in the other related sites section in the right hand column. But, while you're here - stay a bit longer and find out just how we got to the Stokefest 2008.

What did they say about it?

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"He can't get out of the door quick enough on the days when TARU are going in" - Year 4 parent

"She's absolutely loving it. It's the highlight of her week." - Year 5 parent

"I was a bit anxious about whether he'd cope with the noise but in fact it's been brilliant. He's joined in and really stayed focused. It's such an achievement." Year 4, Learning Support Assistant

"When are you coming back? Can we do it again?" - Year 4 student

"It's been brilliant. Just what we needed. So shall we do it again? I'd love to help." Teacher

"Rudy, Rudy, Rudy...." - the clamours in the playground when Rudy arrives says it all really.

Final rehearsals with the primary schools

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The first week of term has been a busy one - for Stoke Newington as we find our way through crates and builders as BSF (the infamous Building Schools for the Future programme, otherwise known as Painting Schools for the Future) begins and try to pull together myriad activities that are all going to contribute to a big show of Stoke Newington Schools at StokeFest but also for the primary schools.

For those schools who hadn't yet begun to make their costumes there has been a lot of paper cutting going on whilst everyone had the chance for final rehearsals with TARU.

The percussionists and dancers who've been leading these sessions over the weeks have been praised throughout by staff and children. However, having had a break of over three weeks since the children last had a practical percussion and dance session this was going to be the real test of how well the artists had really done their job... would the children remember?

Well, they did. No surprises there - for many of them this has been the best part of their school week and so yes, they remembered! And are they excited? Just a little. The two classes rehearsed their moves and their rhythyms came together for the first time and became aquainted again with their finished 'gangleader' (the giant puppet) after his/her sojourn to William Patten. And then with excitement really high they performed for the rest of their school or key stage.

And it was great! With drums and the crescendoing "wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo STOKE FEST" passerbys across N16 must have been wondering what was going on. Hopefully they'll all turn up and find out on Sunday.

Working together....

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It's been hot, it's been humid but more than anything it has been grey and rainy. Where did the sun go over the May half term holiday? We don't know, but thankfully it didn't take the TARU crew and a band of faithful followers with them. They all came along to build five primary schools' giant puppets and the float - a cartoon like car.

Over the week families and parents and children came along to the William Patten playground to help turn general household rubbish into magnificent flights of fancy or animals with school associations. Turning carrier bags into feathers for a giant bird, cereal packets into the legs and arms of a character, plastic bottles into flowers, weaving coloured plastic through net to make a colourful frog seemed like a much better use of recycled materials than landfill.

The recycling message seemed to have been sinking in with the children as one young child when asked what he'd like to do more of with his family announced, "recycling".

This part of the overall project was organised by Stoke Newington School specialist school's department in collaboration with TARU who ran the sessions. It was funded by North Hackney Cluster Extended Schools and big thanks go to Shazia and members of the cluster group for enabling this activity to take place - and of course William Patten for hosting it.

Carnival came early...

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Local Stoke Newington residents and visitors to the Clissold Leisure Centre were treated to an impromptu carnival on the last day of term by 240 students from Stoke Newington School.

Instead of normal lessons and school uniform the Year 7 students, wearing costumes made from recycled materials, gathered in the front of the school and then paraded and performed outside the school gates playing samba rhythms on recycled drums, capoeira in groups and dancing.

The parade and performance outside the school gates was the final point of a day of intensive workshops. The special day was designed for the students as an end of term celebration and as a final farewell from them to the school which is now about to enter the government's Building Schools for the Future programme (meaning portacabins!).

The Year 7s worked with artists from TARU – with everyone making a costume and because we were very keen that the students should have some choice in how they spent the day they were given options of Brazilian percussion, dance or capoeira.

The students had a good time and it was great to see some of the teachers joining in alongside them having a go at capoeira.

Rehearsals at the primary schools

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Through SNS specialist schools status we have extended our work that began with AfroReggae workshops in 2006 to a much larger community based project working with five nominated primary schools. Working with our creative partner, TARU and using their “Scrap Kingdom Party“ banner to deliver workshops to 300 children, the project will result in the children forming the main part of a procession taking place in Clissold Park during StokeFest on Sunday 8 June.

Over a number of weeks TARU went into five of our local primary schools to run assemblies and workshops on Brazilian percussion, dance and costume making using recycled materials.

The artists worked with whole classes ranging from as young as one Year 2 (7/8 year olds) class in Betty Layward through to Year 5s (9/10 year olds) teaching them Brazilian rhythyms and moves and showing them how to make their own costumes.

But, this is carnival and all of that wasn't enough. In addition to working together as a team to perform as a band or to dance as a group the children had to come together to design their own "gang leader", a giant puppet to be carried at the carnival, something that could be pure imagination or factual and would be the uniting element for them all.

Participating schools are: Betty Layward, Grasmere, Grazebrook, Sir Thomas Abney, William Patten. The theme of recycling links to work currently developed through primary liaison work with the Stoke Newington School art department.

Getting started again at Stoke Newington

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We kicked off the Stoke Newington School activity with three days of open workshops at Easter. With a number of practical issues hindering delivery of our overall plan, there'd been a big gap between the Year 8 workshops and performance at Christmas and our next set of Brazilian themed activity. So targetting a range of Key Stage 3 students we were pleased to have a small group of students show up and demonstrate real commitment.

They were willing to try something new - girls who didn't see themselves as drummers suddenly found that they enjoyed it and happily mixed dance and percussion. Boys who absolutely did NOT dance were suddenly reviewing their own perceptions of themselves and what they did do by trying all sorts of athletic dance moves. Suffice to say that by the end of the three days the groups were less polarised by gender and happy to work together, drumming for the dancers and vice versa.

Credit goes to the trainers, Rudy Rocha and Cleyton on percussion and Chris Hibbert the dance tutor who did a fantastic job working with the group.

There is now an afterschool club running in the lead up to the StokeFest carnival.