South African Music at King’s Hall

King’s Hall Prep School pupils recently enjoyed the company of touring South African Prep, The Ridge School, who are based in Johannesburg. Over the past decade, the two schools have visited each other every few years to gain a taste of each other’s culture, play sport and perform music. The Ridge School educates 420 boys, of which 37 visited King’s Hall.

The two schools played cricket and hockey over the weekend, with King’s Hall victorious in the hockey (7 – 0) but The Ridge School winning the cricket.

The Ridge School also performed a variety of musical pieces to an appreciative audience of King’s Hall staff and pupils, in traditional South African style. Director of Music at The Ridge School, Mrs Janet Fox, and music teacher Yonah Zhoya, led an enthusiastic band of 14 in an array of songs, from traditional South African pieces through to not-so-traditional pieces including the ‘YMCA’ song! King’s Hall pupils participated by singing and clapping along and thoroughly enjoyed the diversity of the music. Yonah designed several of the instruments himself, including a pair of large steel ‘pans’ and a unique ‘shaker’, which were played along with different sized marimbas (large xylophones) and Djembe drums.

The Ridge School’s visit was much enjoyed by everyone involved, and it is hoped that similar visits will take place in the future.

Boarders' outing to Crealy Park

This Sunday the boarders went on a fun trip to Crealy Adventure Park in Devon. Luckily the weather stayed fine until about three minutes before we decided to come back to school. We had GREAT fun on all of the fast fun rides, from the Queen Bess Pirate Ship to the El Pastil Loco Family Roller coaster. The best roller coaster by far was the Tidal Wave! Not only did the children enjoy it but most staff members did too. After going on the Tidal Wave roller coaster several times and getting rather wet, there was the children’s farm to go to. This is where we had the chance to see and feed some of the baby animals, from lambs to rabbits. Oh the fun wasn’t over then …. there was still just enough time to have a BIG game of tig in the adventure park before coming back to school!