Celebration Of Christmas

The children of West Leigh Junior School presented their Carol Concert at St Margaret’s Church this week. Due to Covid restrictions, this was our first musical performance since February 2020. The audience, wearing face coverings, was restricted further to one adult per family. This was in order to comply with the current church congregation capacity.

Our Year 4 choir opened proceedings with ‘Do you know how it feels?’ and ‘Bright Star’. They showed great energy and enthusiasm, as well as great control in their soft singing. Year 5 followed with their performance of ‘A Night Long Ago’, singing confidently in two-part harmony.

We were treated to a charming presentation of ’Snowflakes’ by our Year 3 choir. This was well memorised by our youngest children as, like all the children’s pieces, they were presented without music or lyrics sheets. Our Year 6 choir delivered ‘Christmas Songs of Joy’, a medley of traditional and original festive songs, again in two-part harmony.

Well done to our readers for their presentation of the poem ‘No Place to Stay’. The characterful innkeeper certainly raised a smile from the audience! Thank you to Mrs Aggus for making time to rehearse with the children and prepare them so well.

We were all treated to a beautiful performance of ‘Walking in the Air’ by Mrs Bemister. Hearing her soprano voice in full flight was a real pleasure.

The children in Year 4 had learnt simplified sign language for one verse of ‘Away in a Manger’, which then gave Year 3 voices an extra chance to shine. The Upper School choirs also combined for to sing ‘The Star Carol’ together. Hearing their voices join in harmony brought tears to the eye.

Our finale was a happy unison rendition of ‘Winter Wonderland’ by all of our choirs. They sang it so well, we even had a request for an encore!

Thank you to Father David at St Margaret’s Church for making us so welcome, especially as we were needed the church space for three sessions this year. The extra morning was to film all the children’s performances, so those who were not able to attend can have the opportunity to share our celebration of Christmas. Our thanks must go to Mr Nash, Mr Boylan and Mrs Gauntlett for filming the children and editing resulting footage. We hope you enjoy the film.

As Mrs Woolf said at the end of the evening, we are very lucky to have a really dedicated staff team at West Leigh; thank you to all those staff who contributed in any way. Particular thanks to Mrs London for her work with logistics and ticketing arrangements. Finally, thank you to Mrs Walker for her musicianship and hard work throughout the term.

Choirs will now stop until after Christmas; see you in 2022!