Expressive Arts

Music, Drama, Art and Dance all make a significant and exciting contribution to the creative life of the school. Whether it be through formal qualifications or through the wide range of extra-curricular activities, all students have considerable scope to participate in the expressive arts.

Music

Image of students playing trumpet. Music has a very high profile in school, the wider community, locally in Northamptonshire, nationally through our involvement in prestigious events such as the National Festival of Music for Youth and even internationally through our bi-annual tours overseas. The Expressive Arts faculty has an extensive enhancement programme including a brass band, 2 concert bands, 2 string ensembles, 2 choirs, 4 jazz groups and a jazz orchestra.  There is also a Year 7 and year 9 Drama Club and additional  Art Enhancement sessions. In addition, the faculty has put on several productions in recent years including ‘West Side Story’, ‘Brassed Off’, ‘Return to The Forbidden Planet’ and most recently ‘Les Miserables’.  In 2007 the Sponne School Brass Band performed in the Royal Albert Hall and the Birmingham Symphony Hall as part of the National Festival of Music for Youth.

Art

Image of student painting. The Art department is a very busy, popular and successful department.  We have many students who take the subject at GCSE and A Level achieving excellent grades.

We are also a popular subject for younger students who attend our very busy after school sessions on a weekly basis. Students also use the Art studios at lunchtime as a quiet haven for their practical work.

We have also run a number of large successful trips to galleries this year namely the Tate Britain and The Tate Modern in London. Recently, we took a large group of Year Nine students to the Compton Verney Gallery where the students worked on a range of projects inspired by the gallery’s ‘Shadow’ exhibition.

We hold two major exhibitions every year taking up the whole of the hall.  Both exhibitions can be seen separately on the school’s website.

Our students not only work on large canvasses, but also have the opportunity to work with clay.  We also run very popular Photography courses resulting in a GCSE or ‘A’ Level in the subject.  Each student learns how to develop and produce black and white photographs in one of our three darkrooms.

Drama

Image of students performing. Once again there has been a great deal going on in the Drama Department this year. Two Drama clubs have been run, one with a hugely enthusiastic group of up to 35 Year 7 pupils, once a week, in enhancement time, and the other, a dedicated group of Year 9 students.

As usual, our examination performances have produced interesting and thought provoking plays which are open to a school audience. Our theme in Year 12 was modern European Drama with two excellent performances of Anouilh’s ‘Antigone’ and Lorca’s ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’, whilst Year 13 produced two polished devised pieces and two very different interpretations of Dennis Potter’s ‘Blue Remembered Hills’, both of which elicited tears and laughter in equal measure from the audience. In addition, Year 11 produced an intriguing mixture of devised and scripted pieces which showed great versatility.

One new venture this year was the presentation of pantomimes by Year 10 students. One group produced ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, for a largely adult audience, whilst the other presented ‘Aladdin’ to an appreciative audience of Year 7 pupils.

Various trips to the theatre were undertaken. Year 10 students attended ‘Blood Brothers’, in the West End, and Year 12 thoroughly enjoyed ‘Soap’, at the Royal Theatre, watching some of their favourite soap stars playing – soap stars!

The unexpected ‘winter wonderland’ in February,  prevented the Year 13 trip to ‘Twelfth Night’ in Northampton, but the substitute trip, a brilliant performance of ‘The Merchant of Venice’, at the Swan Theatre in Stratford with ‘The New York Theatre for a New Audience’, proved to be truly inspirational. A never to be forgotten experience!

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