Nipper Wins Award

Last night we all went to Ben's school for what we had been told was a "Red Carpet" event. A week ago we received a letter from Ben's school telling us that he had won an award. It didn't say what for or why, and Ben was none the wiser either, so of course our curiosity peaked and we had to go.

We dressed in semi respectable duds...well I wore my suit and Ben his uniform, my wife looked good and Christopher looked....well....casual. Way to go Chris! The event commenced at 7pm.

It transpired that the awards ceremony was to do with the schools Art's Week and was to celebrate achievements in the arts throughout all the years. Seeing as its Ben's first year there it was a surprise he was up for anything. The arts involved things like Music, Drama & Media.

Have to admit we were all clapped out by the end of the evening at 9pm as we hadn't realised there were going to be so many presentations, which were interspersed with films, short plays, music and a fair bit of talking. Ben was one of 12 others in his year awarded a certificate for being an "Arts Champion" and we were (are) all extremely proud of him. Naturally we suspect this has to do with him studying guitar classes after school has finished for the day, organising and being the lead guitarist in a band and its really great his dedication has been noticed at such an early stage.

Although the evening was quite long - or longer than we anticipated - it was also entertaining, mainly for the right reasons, but also for the wrong reasons too. They had "issues" with the projector (as in the operator couldn't work it right), "issues" with the sound (the mic' kept switching off or went up to full volume), and I felt that the students who were into Drama were...how to put it? drama queens. I mean they really really loved themselves and didn't mind the whole hall knowing it, some of it cringingly so. I could spot the ones who were going to be Blue Coats or whatever it is at Butlin's Holiday Camp a mile away. I guess some of the event just wasn't my "thing". I'm just an old fart sometimes lol.

Another thing which was funny was as we walked through the school both on the way in and when leaving, Chris kept saying stuff like "I really love this school" and "its great here. Much better than my old school". Well JMA is a great school. Its new, is well laid out and just always seems like its got the most modern equipment. Here's the layout below. The classes are arranged in what they call "Pods", with a covered walk through between them all and link bridges between the pods on the 1st floors.The blue you can see is a huge rubberised path and those little domes on the roofs light up and change colour at night. Its quite futuristic to see.