Childrens Day at the school

‘Children’s Day’, is November 14th, but was celebrated on Friday 12th at school, and afternoons of programs were put together in honour of the children. Every teacher got involved in either a song, dance or a speech.
Shirley, one of the many beautiful teachers at the school, is an amazing dancer and we’d asked her to teacher us a dance, at first just for fun. But we then had the idea to perform it on Friday for Children’s Day! So we practised for ½ hour each day and learnt a traditional Tamil dance to an India song that lasted 4 minutes…4 minutes!! We created names for all the moves so that we remembered it some of these names including: “pump it” and “the Booty Shake”. If you see the video I’m sure those particular steps will stand out to you. We rehearsed the night before at home for hours, as we were so worried we’d look awful in front of 600 kids! And we didn’t want to disappoint Shirley. We would soon find out that kids would care little about any mistakes we made. All the teachers had said they would bring their uniform sari’s for us to wear during our dance as well, so we were all excited to be dressed in them in the traditional way.
So Friday finally came, all the kids were buzzing with excitement and were wearing either their own clothes, or if they were in standards LKG- 4, they were wearing ‘fancy dress’. I have never seen anything more amazing than the effort that some kids want to. Some kids painted their whole bodies with paint! And In the morning we were given the privilege to judge the fancy dress competition! They were judged on ‘posture’ and ‘costume, ’and some of them really stood out from the crowd. But they were all exceptionally cute!
We practised our dance a few more times before the teachers dressed us in our sari’s. This was a very different experience to our usual getting dressed. So much time and effort goes in to it-it’s an art. And the teachers are so graceful in doing it. We all felt so beautiful.
While we waited behind the stage the teachers went on and did their dance for the children. I have never seen so much respect and love for teachers. As they danced the children were cheering, clapping and singing. It was such a sight that I welled up from happiness. Every child had total admiration for their teachers, and it’s an amazing thing to see. Then…we were up. As we walked on to the stage the kids cheered and clapped and I had forgotten that was meant to be nervous! As soon as we started dancing to the music, the room erupted. The kids went wild and throughout our 4 minute song, they got up and started dancing, stamping their feet and cheering with us. It was such a rush to see it and I felt so touched that they were excited to see us dance! It was definitely a sight I will never forget and a wonderful experience I will always remember.
-Kirsty

Childrens Day at the school