Carnival at Curwen is a multi-sensory experience of colourful costumes, music, and dance.

The countries represented at Carnival were the same as the Mini World Experience.

Designing and creating costumes formed part of the Design and Technology lessons for example, the Year 5s outcome is sewing. Children used sewing skills and other Design and Technology skills to design their T-shirt then sew their flags onto the T-shirt. Parents were invited to participate with their child to support in sewing of the flags on the T-shirt.

Each year groups performance was choreographed in line with the countries by the PE team. The PE team started teaching in January to make sure that the entire year group cohort of 120 children are ready for their performance. Whilst this sounds a lot of weeks ahead, in reality is nine lessons in all.

Each PE member leads on a dance / country. They researched music from that country and often ask parents and staff from the countries to suggest some music. They researched important facts about the countries and shared these with the children, i.e. where in the world is the country, what languages are spoken, what does the money look like, is there a cultural dress, facts about the country, etc. They listened to a range of music from that country and watched videos of typical dances as well.

When asked a PE team member about whether there were any challenges faced, the response was, “The hardest year group to find music was for Year 1s because their focus was on the nations of United Kingdom, the music is so broad in choice, hence the change of theme to ‘Brits abroad’.

Once the music has been chosen, they begin the planning of the dance routine. At first only two classes come together and have an hour each week. Once the majority of the dance is complete all four classes come together to join up and learn where to stand in the space. This is followed by learning the entrance music / dance, the crossover music from one space to the other and the exit dance. A few lessons prior to Carnival, all class teachers are invited to pop in to learn the dance too. For instance, the Year 4 whose theme was Brazil highlighted the importance of deforestation in the Amazon by recognising the impact of the animals with their changing habitat. There were two parts to this dance. Children took on the role of rainforest animals at the start of their performance followed on by Brazilian popular dance movements. The children wore T-shirts to promote the importance of the negative impact of the destruction of natural environment.

Judging the Carnival was by far the most challenging part in International Week at Curwen this year. Even though the criteria were set on costume design, performance / movement and overall creativity, as one of the judges commented, it was one of the closest Curwen ever had. Winners were merely a point apart! So, what did the winning year group have different that gave them that extra point? Their costumes were designed using Canva. Each design was individual and different from the other – that’s amazing, said another judge.

 

1^st place – Year 6 – Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica

2^nd place – Year 4 – Brazil and Peru

3^rd place – Year 2 – Hawaii (USA) and Ghana