Feliz Navidad with Health Poverty Action

Well done to the Christmas choir for joyful singing and proudly raising £141 today for health poverty action. They sang, accompanied by teachers, at Clapham North Tube.

Health Poverty Action does great work across the world to improve the health outcomes of those affected by poverty or not included in society.

Year 5 Jazz Workshop Project

On Friday, Year 5 put on the most spectacular Jazz performance. It was a culmination of an intense 5 day project working with the supremely talented Pete Letanka, learning about the fundamentals of music through Jazz. The children of Year 5, in such a short period of time learnt to play instruments, read music, write and sing songs! On the day of the performance, the children performed what they had been working on accompanied by a Pete and his band! It was a great experience and well done to everyone involved!

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WORLD BOOK DAY!

Today at Charles Dickens, the building was awash with weird and wonderful characters from the most amazing range of books!

Both children and adults was dressed up as their favourite characters – who did you think was wearing the best costume?!

Mr Windle organised a fun-packed day and an excellent assembly in which, with Ms Gemmell’s help, we sung our favourite book-related song!

Well done to everyone who dressed up and I hope you had a brilliant day – I know I did!

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Concert for Winter Performance!

Today, we were treated to an amazing performance by the Year 3 and 4 choir and ukulele clubs. Last term, Mr Oxenham and Ms Gemmell worked very hard with the children in order to compose and perform a fantastic original composition. The children were inspired by Charles Dickens and the resulting song “Hard Times” focuses on Dickens’ life as a child, when he lived on Lant Street. The talented team performed their piece on stage at Shakespeare’s Globe before Christmas and everyone was delighted to finally be given the chance to share their work. We can’t wait for their next creation!

Two Choirs, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and a whole lot of Ukuleles

You are probably wondering what they all have in common?
The answer is the children of Charles Dickens Primary School this week….

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It starts with the Year 5 and 6 choir who have been performing carols in and around SE1 this week. So far, the choir have raised nearly £100 for Marie Curie Cancer Care following singing at London Bridge Station. On Wednesday, this group of marvellous singers performed at the Dog and The Pot near Southwark Tube station and raised much needed funds for our Musical Tuition Bursary Fund which supports talented keen pupils in learning an instrument.

Thank you to the choir for giving up their lunchtimes to rehearse and perform and also to Ms Rhys Evans for leading them. Next week, the choir is performing at Connect, the charity supporting people who suffer from Aphasia following a stroke.

Staying with the Charles Dickens theme, the Year 3 and 4 choir , alongside the Ukulele club,wrote a song all about Charles Dickens’ early childhood living on Lant Street and visiting his father in Marshalsea Prison. They also performed this rather wonderful song in Shakeapeare’s Globe ( here’s the Shakespeare link) as part of ‘Concert for Winter’, accompanied by the year 3/4 Ukuleles. Special thanks to Mr Oxenham and Ms Gemmell for leading such a rewarding project.

Superheroes for ‘Children in Need’!

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Well done to everyone who dressed up to raise money for Children In Need last Friday. You all looked fantastic dressed up as your heroes and you sang ‘God Only Knows!’ by The Beach Boys quite brilliantly!  A special congratulations to Year 3 and 4 who did a sponsored spelling test and to Year 5 and 6 who did a sponsored long distance run!

The cakes and biscuits made not only looked delicious but also tasted delicious and raised lots of extra money! Thank you to all the parents and families who dusted off their aprons and baked something to donate we are really really grateful for your support!

Tumi was the winner of the Pudsey bear money box with her guess of ‘Hebrew’  as Pudsey’s language talent – Mrs Buchanan chose a language randomly on Monday in assembly.

So…the money is still coming in ( by Friday please) but we have already raised well over £600!

Well Done Charles Dickens Primary!

Super Singing ‘Thursday’ –

Wow! Could we cram any more shows into a week? Super Singing Thursday saw a double bill of performances for year 5 and 6 as both the Year 6 choir and the Year 5s performed in venues along the Southbank.

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The Year 6 choir were asked to perform a selection of songs at the Excellence in Southwark awards for schools and teachers at the Southwark Council Buildings. Each year, the local authority celebrates outstanding teaching and achievement. Wonderful Mrs Worley (Head of PE) received an award for her leadership of our outstanding sports provision at Charles Dickens. The choir were very warmly received and sang beautifully led by Ms Rhys Evans.

Ms Rhys Evans then got on her bike and cycled to The Royal Festival Hall to lead our Year 5 children as they took part in Southwark Splash, a borough wide singing, dancing and percussion led performance of an original piece ‘The Bloodless Giant’ involving over 500 children from over 10 schools. Congratulations to our children who both performed and behaved exceptionally well.

Thank you to Ms Rhys Evans for both her talent and energy in delivering two high octane performances in one day! Thank you also to the teachers who accompanied the year 5 children to this wonderful event.

If you sing it, we’ll play it!

Mr Oxenham has recently launched a Ukulele club for pupils in years 3 and 4 who are keen to learn. This week they performed their first ‘gig’ for the whole school accompanying the year 3 and 4 choir as the choir sang a newly written ‘Friendship Song’, with lyric written by the choir and melody by Emeli Sande and led by Ms Gemmell

You can see their performance here

Watch Ukulele Club and Year 3/4 choir

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Southwark Vocal Magic

On Friday 4th April, the Year 5/6 choir performed alongside other Southwark Schools in ‘Southwark Vocal Magic’. The mass choir was led by Singology and the event was made possible by Southwark Music Services. Thank you to the talented Ms Rhys Evans and her team of committed teachers who supported the choir so magnificently. We hope that all the families who attended the concert at The Queen Elizabeth Hall enjoyed this wonderful event as much as we did.

Here is an extract from the performance of one of our children’s favourite song, ‘Roar!’

Here is a short clip of of Ms Rhys Evans, Ms Livett, Ms Foster and Mr Bakas singing ‘Lean on Me!’

Well done to all of you!