The drama of moving schools: Bunny finds her hidden talents

Bunny recently moved schools and the difference in her is remarkable.

She’s not as tired, because she’s not spending a large chunk of her day stuck in traffic. She’s also getting to school on time, because of this (most of the time).

The money we would have spent on petrol for the school run, we now spend on petrol for days out at the weekend, which makes for a happier child.

She’s getting more fresh air and exercise, as we walk to school now.

She’s found after school clubs she enjoys and attends three days a week. She dropped out of the clubs in her last school because she just didn’t enjoy them.

Her new school partake in the Vivos reward system, which means she is more engaged and comes home really enthusiastic when she has earnt Vivos.

She is making friends with local children, which means she can play with them in the park, bump into them when we walk to the shops and arrange playdates without all the car-seat and lifts-home hassle.

But the biggest difference, is the inclusion in her new school. All children get to take part in everything. This is most noticeable in school plays and performances. At her old school, they performed one play per year. Each play had 90-150 children and only a select few got a speaking part or anything more than being “in the chorus”. Bunny has been at her new school just three months and has already had speaking parts in three plays. Not because she’s “the new girl”, but because the school give speaking parts to ALL the children in the class. Everyone is included. There are no clear signs of favouritism.

I felt really proud, as I watched my 7 year old daughter, perform her first line in a school performance just a few weeks ago. She stood up, head held high and delivered her line, loudly, clearly and on time.

The following week, was a full on play and this time she had five lines AND had to kiss a year five boy!!! It was an Easter play and Bunny was Judas. She had to deny that she would betray Jesus. One of her lines was, “No, I won’t! I won’t do it!”.

Did Bunny say this line? No. She didn’t just say it, she performed it. In fact, she over-performed it to the extent she wouldn’t have looked out of place on the set of Eastenders. She shouted the line, in anger, despair and determination to prove that she, Judas, would NOT betray Jesus. And whilst shouting this line, she leant forwards towards Jesus and his disciples. Her arms flailed up in the air and as she brought them back down again, she huffed loudly, turned on her heel and stormed off stage. It was a lot like being at home and asking her to tidy her bedroom! I’m not sure anyone was quite expecting a performance like that. She brought the house down. Every parent in the audience let out a nervous giggle at the tantrum my daughter had expertly launched in the middle of the Easter story. How could any of the other actors year threes follow that?

I glanced up at her as she walked out of the wing and back onto the stage and she had an absolutely wicked grin on her face, as if to say, “that went even better than I planned”.

Since then. Bunny has been assigned another speaking part in a play, which I’ve yet to see. She is an old beggar woman selling flowers on the street in Victorian times (I think). This time, when she was given her lines by the teacher, she came up with better lines and asked her teacher if she could change it to make it more comical. The teacher apparently thought this was a great idea and loved her creative input.

She also set the whole Brownie pack off laughing when they made a very short play about St George in their sixes. Bunny was the princess, being chased by a dragon. Where the rest of the Brownies has quietly and cautiously kept to one corner of the room and said their lines, Bunny… ran around the room, with her arms in the air screaming “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”.

I now know why her new teacher referred to her as “dramatic”

So it would appear that Bunny’s new school has revealed Bunny’s hidden talent for acting and entertaining. She clearly gets it from Daddy, because he is the entertainer in our family and loves to be centre stage and make people laugh. She has joined the drama club to nurture this passion and although it may need some refining, it’s lovely to see her exuding so much confidence.

The days she does drama at school, she is also angelic at home. I think it must be her outlet.

After all of this, Bunny then went to Beat Camp over the Easter holidays. There she spent two days doing percussion, singing and dancing. At the end of the week, she and the other children did five performances to parents. One with Boomwhackers, one with Poi spinning, one Stomp inspired performance, one Mary Poppins theatrical performance and one street dance performance. She worked hard and did really well in all of them. She loved every second. (Full review of Beat Camp coming up in the next few days).

I am very proud of how far she has come in three months. With her education. With her behaviour. With the friendships she has made. And with her newfound love of performing.