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3. Rockwood Academy’s Winter Festival and Arabic Language Day Activities

Rockwood Academy students and staff have been practising our CORE values of Collaboration, Opportunity, Respect, and Excellence by creating, organising, and starring in not one, but two, performances that showcase the arts, music, and modern language talent across our year groups.

Spreading the Christmas spirit throughout Rockwood Academy, our Winter Festival on Wednesday 12 ^th December was a celebration of music and drama. The evening was organised by our Head of Music Miss Wilkins and featured collaborative performances from students and staff. Showcasing the musical talent on display at Rockwood Academy, drummers, guitarists, wind and string instrumentalists and singers performed Christmas classics including Jingle Bells and pop hits including Love Yourself by Justin Bieber. The evening also included a performance of our Arabic students Arabic Nativity, truly displaying the diversity within our student and staff community. To cap it all off, all proceeds from the evening went to charity.

Lovely rendition of ‘Love Yourself’ by Justin Bieber at the Winter Festival. pic.twitter.com/uo60BXvqyo

— Rockwood Academy (@CORERockwood)

On Monday 17 ^th December, students studying Arabic celebrated Arabic Language Day early with an afternoon of Arabic-inspired drama, music and poetry. Led by our Head of Modern Foreign Languages, Mrs Rida, the programme included Year 9’s take on Arabic popular literature, performing their play ‘Joha’s Jokes (The Pot That Died) as well as a collaborative student and staff adaptation of Lamma Bada Yatahannna, a 15 ^th Century Muwashshah, which is a genre of secular music from Al Andalus. The programme also featured another performance of our Arabic nativity.

Both performances brought together our students, our staff, and our local community whilst showcasing the inspiring learning and talent taking place at Rockwood Academy.