Latest News from Edmund Waller
This year’s Summer Celebration will be online at 7pm!
If you’d like to see the faces of other audience members, then feel free to also join the Zoom meeting, details of which were circulated by email on Friday. Whether you choose to Zoom or not, you will need to watch via the YouTube video.
We look forward to enjoying the night with you.
As you will know by now, our usual Summer Celebration will be replaced by an online event – a way of connecting at the end of the year and wishing each other a healthy, happy summer.
The Idea
Amongst some other items, we are aiming to create something like this for each year group:
Your child’s year group will have a song and hopefully, they will have learned it at home and during Zoom rehearsals.
We hope that lots of you will take part. Below you can view, play and download the lyrics and guide tracks for your child’s year group. At the bottom of the table, you can find the whole school songs.
| Year Group | Lyrics | Guide Track |
| Rec | Space Oddity Lyrics | Space Oddity (guide) |
| Year 1 | Dinosaur Song Lyrics | Dinosaur Song (guide) |
| Year 2 | Fire! Songs Lyrics | Fire! Songs (guide) |
| Year 3 | In the Mood Lyrics | In the Mood (guide) |
| Year 4 | Let Me Take You To Rio Lyrics Samba Players’ Information | Let Me Take You To Rio (guide) |
| Year 5 | Hail Caesar! Lyrics (children sing the whole thing) | Hail Caesar! (guide) (children sing the whole thing) |
| Year 6 | Walk Like an Egyptian Lyrics | Walk Like an Egyptian (guide) |
| ALL Classes | I’m Coming Out Lyrics Dance your socks off – you and your children! Space Oddity Lyrics | I’m Coming Out (guide) Dance your socks off – you and your children! Space Oddity (guide) |
For this to work, we need you to capture your child’s performance at home, and then send it to us. We will then combine the recordings from each year group.
Performance
We encourage children to have as much fun as possible creating the videos, dressing up, singing, dancing. Make it enjoyable. There is no pressure to sound perfect. Teachers will have given guidance in home learning.
Playing and Recording
The resulting video should not include the backing music.
Tip: Record close to your child to avoid having too much echo in the room. This tends to improve the overall sound.
If your child’s performance includes dance, it may be best to record an audio/sound file (voice note) separately. Please send both files in the same way.
Naming Videos (very important)
Please rename your files before sending (ChildName_class_song). It will really help the editing process.
Example:
Eden_6W_ImComingOut.mp4
Eden_6W_SpaceOddity.mp3
Sending
Due to the large size of video files, you may need to use a service such as WeTransfer, Gdrive, OneDrive or Dropbox. If you have problems with sending your video, it would be very helpful to us if you would ask friends for support, only contacting the school as a last resort.
If you are able to choose the subject line of the email you send, please include the same information as the file name.
Please send files by Sunday 28th June to:
music@edmundwaller.lewisham.sch.uk
The above email address is a shared mailbox which will be monitored for submissions only.
The Event – 7pm, Monday 20th July
The event will be a live, free, publicly viewable stream on the internet. Feel free to invite family and friends to watch. The link to the stream will be shared nearer the time and will be posted on the school website.
NB: We will treat your sending of video and audio files as consent to use your child’s image and performance in this way. For this reason, we ask that you send the file from your own email account, and not that of your child.
These are NOT the backing tracks to use for your recordings. These are to help with learning the songs. The tracks for recording will be posted by Wednesday evening and you’ll get an email. It is important that everyone uses the correct track for the recording, or we’ll all be singing out of time!
Whole School – Space Oddity
Whole School – I’m Coming Out
Year 1 – Dinosaur Song
Year 2 – Fire Songs
Year 3 – “In the Mood” (from 1:20)
Year 4 – “Let Me Take You To Rio” (learn Chorus only)
Year 5 – “Hail Caesar” (chorus only)
Year 6 – “Walk Like an Egyptian”
We will resume Monday morning singing on Monday 15th June using the existing invitations sent earlier in the term. We hope you can join us. For those who have not taken part before, details are below.
Key Stage 1 (Rec, 1 & 2): 9:40am – 9:55am
Key Stage 2 (years 3, 4,5 & 6): 10:30am – 10:45am
We will be using an online meeting platform called Zoom. If you want to join in, but have never used Zoom before, we suggest you download it in advance by clicking on the invitations when they arrive.
Meeting invitations will be resent to parents by email. If you have not been receiving the weekly newsletter by email, you may need to update your contact details with the office.
Notes for those participating:
Looking forward to seeing you!
In case you missed the stories read and uploaded by our teachers, you can always access all of them here:
https://www.edmundwaller.lewisham.sch.uk/blog/category/storytime/
Mrs Scholl reads “Lila and the Secret of Rain” by David Conway and Jude Daly
The beautiful story of how Lila saves her village by telling the sky the saddest thing she knows. For months the sun has burned down on Lila’s Kenyan village. It is too hot to gather firewood, too hot to weed the garden, even too hot to milk the cow. Without rain the well will run dry and the crops will fail. Lila is so worried that when her grandfather whispers to her the secret of rain, she decides to go and talk to the sky herself.
David Conway was born in Ireland but moved to England as a baby, and has lived here ever since. He currently works at home, bringing up his daughter and son, and writing for children. His poetry has been published in many anthologies, including Loose Change in association with War on Want. David lives in North London.
Jude Daly was born in London and emigrated to South Africa as a young child. She went to art college in Cape Town, and now lives there with her husband, the writer and illustrator Niki Daly, and their two sons.
Miss Boxall reads “Stanley Bagshaw and the Short-Sighted Football Trainer” by Bob Wilson
It seems that nothing can save Huddersgate Albion from a terrible defeat on the home ground. Until Stanley Bagshaw finds his way on the pitch that is – after that anything can happen.
Mrs Mooney reads “The Egg” by M.P. Robertson.
George knows something isn’t right when he finds more than he bargained for under his mother’s favourite chicken….but when the egg hatches he finds himself looking after a baby dragon! George takes his job as a parent seriously, teaching the hatchling all sorts of ‘dragony’ ways, but the dragon begins to pine for his own kind, and one day he disappears…
Mark (M.P) Robertson was born in Parsons green, London in 1965. He studied illustration at Kingston Polytechnic.
After he graduated in 1988 he worked as a freelance illustrator. He has illustrated over a hundred covers and has provided countless pen and ink illustrations for many titles by distinguished authors, such as Joan Aiken, Robert Bolt, Robert Swindells, Adele Geras and Brian Patten.
In 1997 he wrote and illustrated his first picture book Seven ways to catch the Moon. He followed this with The Egg a story about a boy and a foundling dragon. His latest book Frank n Stan is a heart warming retelling of Mary Shelley’s gothic classic.
Miss Rogations reads “Nobody Owns the Sky” by Reeve Lindbergh
The story of Bessie Coleman becoming the first licensed African American aviator is sure to inspire readers to follow their own dreams.
As a young black woman in the 1920s, Bessie Coleman’s chances of becoming a pilot were slim. But she never let her dream die and became the first licensed African-American aviator. Reeve Lindbergh honors her memory with a poem that sings of her accomplishment. With bold illustrations by Pamela Paparone, Nobody Owns the Sky will inspire readers to follow their dreams.
Miss Greenbank reads one of her favourite stories to us: “Mr Wolf’s Pancakes”
Take a look at the file below with some fun questions to answer about the book!
