Campsmount

At the beginning of the year due to the success of dance at Campsmount last year a new dance club was set up on a Friday evening after school. Becky Dyas from Upstage School of Theatre Dance was brought into Campsmount to deliver a block of work on street dance from September to October half term.

However due to the success of this club, it is still going strong, however now continuing for the remainder of the year on a Monday evening after school.

Students pay £1 a session to learn street dance technique and choreograph different routines. Becky has worked with the girls to choreograph different routines to perform at various events. For example the girls performed at “Darts” The Point on Friday 21st November to celebrate the “Get Doncaster Dancing” campaign. They opened the massive Eurovision Dance Contest just recently at the beginning of March and they showcased their skills off at the Doncaster Dance Showcase at Danum Technology College last week.

The club has gone from strength to strength and now 23 students regularly attend to develop their street dance skills further.

The students are awaiting to see if they have been sucessful with a Youth bank Trust bid, as they would like to purchase some kit for their very succesful out of school hours club.

C.Knowland (Campsmount School Sports Co-ordinator)

We could have the next Ricky Hatton at Norton infant school where pupils are taking part in a seven week boxercise training programme. Their training consists of a full body work out where they take part in core exercises such as press ups, crunches and skipping.

Pupils are instructed on how to perform the movements and punches a boxer would use; from their footwork and how each pupil moves around the room, to how they throw their punches safely and effectively.

Pupils are now at the stage of getting gloves on and practicing their boxing skills and technique on hand pads.

C.Knowland (Campsmount School Sports Co-ordinator)

It’s that time of year again, where I have been responsible for organising the Annual Dance Show, after the success of the first one last year. This year I decided to take a gamble and give the students the theme of the Eurovision Dance Contest. Back in September 2008, I met with students who had become members of the newly formed Campsmount Dance Academy. They were then asked to get into friendship groups in each year group and were handed their “Eurovision Brief”.

Students had to sit and listen to various Eurovision CDs going back a few years of songs that had entered the Eurovision Song Contest. 

Over the next few weeks students decided on their songs and this in turn reflected what country they would then represent in the contest in March 2009. 

Over the next few months each week on various lunch times, all students attended the dance academy to choreograph a routine in their groups, to perform at the contest. They worked with various staff at the academy to develop these pieces and younger students worked with dance leaders, who are currently undertaking the Level 1 Dance Leaders Course.

On the night of the show guests were greeted with a large projector screen showing all the students rehearsing their routines, whilst past United Kingdom Eurovision entries played over the top of this. 

Alongside this the students all sat around round tables with their flags in the middle showing which country they belonged to. Spectators were all handed hand wavers when they arrived for the country that they had come to support and whilst waiting all 84 performers did a fantastic job of getting the crowd going with their hand wavers and cheering for their countries. I arranged for two members of staff to to be the Eurovision Presenters and chose one of these from the language department, who did a fantastic job of introducing the contest in English & French, along with then introducing each country in their spoken language.

We decided that we would pretend that the United Kingdom had won the contest in 2008 and this was the reason for us hosting the contest. Therefore, first of all a performance was given by what was meant to be the winning dance by United Kingdom in 2008. This was performed by the new Campsmount Street Dance Club, who had worked with their Street Dance Coach Becky Dyas to choreograph a routine to Javine – Touch My Fire.

After this performance 12 countries in total that had entered the contest performed, which were Denmark, Romania, FYR Macedonia, Cyprus, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Iceland & Greece. The PE department also entered a dance and 7 members of this department put together a routine to perform at the contest for the students. This was not allowed to win the contest and judges had instructions to limit the points we received – However only receiving “Douze Points” in total I’m sure we deserved more!

As well as this Askern Spa & Norton Juniors the two feeder schools for Campsmount were invited to perform at the contest. Year 5 students had previously worked on a dance piece, with the Campsmount Dance leaders at the new Dance Club, which had been set up for them at Campsmount. The students performed as two groups to the same song for Norway so I decided to split the country into North and South Norway and then the two feeder schools could compete against each other in the contest as well.

To conclude the contest a special performance was given by students from the Upstage School of Theatre Dance at Stainforth. Sarah Belk, one of the Doncaster Schools Sports Partnership Dance Coaches had worked with the girls to choreograph a piece to perform to Jemini-Cry baby. This is a school/club link that has been developed this year and this was a great end to the contest.

At the end of all the performances a short break was given for the judges to reflect on all the performances and for them to decide on the scores they were going to give out. Then each judge from the 12 countries gave points from 1 -8, 10 and 12, reflecting the scoring system of the Eurovision Song Contest. Each score was announced in English and French by our Presenters and Judges were not allowed to score for their own country. We had a large scoring system on the large projector screen reflecting how the results are given in the contest. Also each judge had to say” Good Evening Europe” in their own language, then say for example “Here are the results of the Danish Jury” then after giving their scores they had to say thank you and goodbye in their own language.

After a very close contest between Cyprus and Turkey, Cyprus just beat their Turkish Rivals to win the 2009 Eurovision Dance Contest, scoring over 100 points. The winning performers were invited to the stage to receive their trophy and medals and all students received Dancing on Ice Tickets, then following this they were asked to perform their winning dance again to Ela Ela!! We had a sell out crowd selling 350 tickets.

The day after there was such a “Eurovision Buzz” around school, with students asking when they were going to pick their songs for next year, which Cyprus are now to host. This was a fantastic evening and all of the students who participated in the contest were a credit to our school. This is a great way of developing lots of Cross Curricular links in schools and is something we would recommend to other schools. Not only that it develops Intra-competition within school and participation in out of school hours clubs.

A great successful first Eurovision Party!!!!

(We have also done the Practice -A-Thon Dance which is being run by the Royal Academy of Dance to raise money for CLIC Sargent (Caring for Children with Cancer). We have set ourselves the target of trying to raise £1000 with the event to try and raise enough money for one child who is suffering with cancer to get a holiday with their family).

C.Knowland (Campsmount School Sports Co-ordinator)