WATCH: St Sampson’s High students make post-lockdown videos

The idea for the project started during lockdown when arts and drama students were discussing the possibility of putting together an online concert to keep up student morale.

Usually the Creative Arts Department puts together a ‘MAD’ night in June which celebrates the students’ work in music, art and drama.

However, due to Covid-19 the school realised that this was not going to be possible and looked at other ways they could still celebrate with pupils, including the Year 11s, who were going through a strange time knowing that they might not return to school.

Head of creative arts at St Sampson’s High School Sarah Tennant said that, with the encouragement of head teacher Adrian King, the students would focus on making a series of video presentations which could be shared with the school community.

‘We began recording the video footage on our return to school in June,’ she explained.

‘In phase four we were still not allowed to sing or play woodwind and brass instruments so we weren’t able to actually start recording until we reached phase five, which meant we had a very busy last three weeks of term with all the recording taking place at lunchtimes and all the mixing and production achieved in many extra hours at weekends and after school.’

The students have made three videos so far:The Orchestra, Art Work, and Times Like These, with a fourth (excerpts from Theatre Club’s cancelled performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) following in September.

Times like these is a cover of the Foo Fighters’ original song and artistically celebrates the journey of St Sampson’s as a school community from lockdown to the end of term.

All the instrumental and vocal parts were performed by students and staff.

Ms Tennant said it was a great opportunity to show the team spirit of the school, with creative arts staff Will Rutherford and Nerine Ozanne and English teacher Jess Ingles working collaboratively, supported by many other colleagues and students whose talents are now out there for everyone to see.

‘We played the video at our final assembly and it prompted an emotional response which now seems to have extended to the wider local community, with around 30,000 views on the school’s Facebook page and website,’ she said.

‘We felt it important to create a memory of what the students have been through and wanted to give them something to look back on to reflect such an unusual year of their lives.

‘The relief felt by us all to get to the end of this term is summed up in the final response from the students: ‘We did it!’.’

Watch St Sampson’s High students’ post-lockdown video on https://bit.ly/2OLgBHL.