DAY 1 - INTRODUCTION

Day 1 began with you singing the "Hullo Song" and playing lots of games to get to know each other and become friends.

After Break, you met Professors Cheese and Onion, and discovered that they had lost an important book called "Encyclopaedia Earth" from the Galactic Library. The Galactic Librarian told Cheese and Onion that they had to replace the book or pay a very large fine! The Professors decide to re-write the book with your 3 schools helping on the chapter about Music, Art and Entertainment.

To show the Librarian how the presentations would look, the Professors did a small presentation about the "Evolution of Man". They acted out a scene as cavemen eating dinner around a camp-fire, they talked about man today and the kinds of food we eat, and was there enough for all of us? Would there be enough food for all of us in the future? What would man be like in the future? After the presentation on the Evolution of Man, you all sang our special song, "There’s Got To Be a Better Way!" for the first time.

After lunch you were tested on the presentation about the Evolution of Man, with a quiz. Can you remember how many people live in the world today? You spent most of the afternoon in our groups, finding out how much you know about Music, Art and Entertainment. You were then shown the "Tree of Knowledge" just before the Goodbye Song. The end of a nice first day!

DAY 2 - MUSIC, ART AND ENTERTAINMENT PAST

After the Hullo Song and game, you met Professors Cheese and Onion again. They taught you an Eskimo chant (early Music). They talked to you about cave paintings (early Art) and Professor Onion did a painting of Professor Cheese hunting mammoth (which was you children.) They talked about the Roman Colosseum and Christians being thrown to the lions, and gladiators fighting to the death (early Entertainment - how horrid!) (The also mentioned that bagpipes did not originate in Scotland - and that the oldest found bagpipes are 3,000 years old.)

After a quiz to see how much you had learnt, you spent the rest of the morning researching and preparing your presentations for the afternoon.

Amy’s group, who were working on Entertainment did a presentation on Ancient Greek Theatre, with tragedy and comedy masks. They showed the Colosseum in Rome and gladiators, roughly 509-27 B.C. They also showed the Globe Theatre and Shakespeare’s plays, the 3 witches from Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.

Daryl’s group who were working on Music showed tribal drums, masks, chanting and birds whistling. They presented a choir singing "Share Your Aspirations", and they explained that the first printed music was produced in 1501, and demonstrated the Doh Ray Mi Fa So La Ti Doh musical scale.

Kate’s group, who were working on Art, showed the Hunters and the Wolves. The hunters defeated the wolves and painted a picture to warn the tribe of attack. They said that the earliest found cave painting, in Altamira in Spain, was probably painted 20,000 years ago.

Daryl’s group were chosen to do the presentation on Music Past at the Schools Festival Day in July. All the presentations were really good and the team enjoyed them a lot. You then learned the new verse for the "There’s Got To Be a Better Way" song, before doing your Tree Work and singing the Goodbye Song.

DAY 3 - MUSIC, ART AND ENTERTAINMENT PRESENT

After the Hullo Song and parachute game, Professors Cheese and Onion talked to us about modern ways of listening to music - CD’s, tapes, records. The Professors showed an early record player (gramaphone) and listened to an early record. (Onion danced with Zoe!)

They then talked about modern art. Onion drew a picture entitled "Straight Black Line, With Squiggly Bit At The Bottom" and Professor Cheese tried to auction the painting to you all! Some people offered £1 for the picture, but most people thought the picture was rubbish! (Some modern art has been sold for astonishingly high prices - ask your teachers if they can find you details and amounts.)

Finally Professors Cheese and Onion talked about modern entertainment - television mainly. Favourite television programmes included Pokemon, the Simpsons and Ali G! We also talked about Soap Operas, and discovered that we ALL watched at least one Soap Opera!

After the Quiz, you went off in your groups to prepare, research and rehearse your preparations for the afternoon.

Daryl’s group did a presentation about a recording studio with the band mmmYUM. There were singers, musicians, dancers and sound engineers with headphones. They told us that the first CD was created in 1983.

Kate’s group did a presentation on computer animation and displayed new Pokemon characters. They also gave us the W.S.L. News (the Widcombe, Summerfield, Limegrove News!)

Amy’s group did a presentation on entertainment which told us that Americans watch 7 hours of television a day! They talked about mobile phones, and what’s on TV and channel surfing., and they mentioned Southpark/the Simpsons/Neighbours/Home and Away/Eastenders/Football.

We finished the day by practising our song, adding to the Tree of Knowledge and singing the Goodbye Song.

DAY 4 - MUSIC, ART AND ENTERTAINMENT FUTURE

This was our last day together and was all about the possible future of music, art and entertainment. We also spent time talking about the possible future of the world!

Professors Cheese and Onion gave a lecture about the importance of the year 2000. People all around the world are using this year as a reason to look at their past and think about how to improve things for themselves and others for the future. People are learning from the past, and looking at today, so they can grow, and see there has to be a better way!

Your ideas to improve the world included finding ways to combat pollution. One suggested idea was to build cars that ran on water, rather than petrol. Another aspiration was to end all wars! You thought it was possible to do this if we all worked on ways to get along better.

After the lecture, it was time for you all to think about the future for your group topics, music, art and entertainment.

After lunch we settled back to watch your presentations.

Amy's group's presentation was about the future of entertainment. It involved an interstellar tourist trip. Apart from the amazing galactic views, there was also an opportunity for some people to play football on the moon!

Daryl's group's presentation was about music in the future. They decided that future music involved combining the new technologies with old sounds. They had composed a piece of music using robots playing old instruments like xylophones and drums and also using vocal chants and humming.

Kate's group's presentation was about art in the future. They decided that art in the future would be created by robots! Their presentation showed a procession of different robots dancing up to a big canvass and contributing a piece of art before moving on to let another robot have a go. This was all performed to dance music.

Kates group was chosen to show their presentation at the Schools Festival Day in July.

To finish the week we recorded your Aspirations song "There's got to be a better way!", and finished our treework.

We also asked you what your personal aspiration was...how do you see yourselves in the future? What will you be doing?

We really enjoyed working with you this week. You worked really hard and did some great presentations. We really look forward to seeing you again in July for a follow-up recap and rehearshal session and for the Schools Festival Day on 19 July. Keep in touch with us by e mail - we will always answer any communication you send us. LOVE FROM PADDY, CHARLIE, DARYL, KATE and AMY.

HI! THIS IS ARABELLA AGAIN. I came and had a look at your work on the Friday afternoon and very much enjoyed what I saw. We hope you enjoyed it all and learnt a lot.

Have a think about "Aspirations". Maybe look it up in the dictionary and have a talk about what it all means. How would you like the world to be in the future, for yourself, for your family, for your school, for your neighbourhood, for your country and for the world? What changes could take place that could make the world a better place?

Here we are at the beginning of a new Century and a new Millennium - maybe we have the chance to learn from the past, look at the present and help make the world a better place in the future?

It's worth a try!

 

HERE ARE THE WORDS OF YOUR SONG:

BATH'S "ASPIRATIONS" SONG

CHORUS

Share your Aspirations,

The Future's in your hands.

We can make a difference -

Let's start making plans!
 

If we learn from the Past,

And we look at Today,

We will grow -

There's got to be a better way!


PAST
 

Cavemen painted pictures,

Chanting prayers and rhymes.

Shakespeare plays and poems,

What?...No TV Times?!
 

CHORUS
 

PRESENT

 
Southpark, soaps and Gameboys,

CD's, tapes and pop,

Cartoon animations,

Shop until you drop!

 
CHORUS

 
FUTURE

 
Robot art computers,

Trousers play a tune,

Water cars and rockets -

Football on the moon!

 
CHORUS

 
Share your Aspirations -

The Future's in your hands.

We can make a difference -

Let's start making plans!

 
If we learn from the Past

And we look at Today

We will grow -

There's got to be a Better Way!

It's a great song - well done for writing such good verses. Maybe you can practise the song a few times before we come and see you again?

Here are some lovely photographs