Our Y5&6 Christmas Choir helped to raise the roof of St Andrew’s Church at this year’s Penrith Schools’ Music Association Carol Festival on Monday 9th December. This was an exciting event for the choir members, with over 50 children wanting to take part. With limited space, only 30 children were able to perform in the event – if we could have taken everyone, we would! The Christmas Choir gave a rousing and inspiring ‘Platinum’ performance, having worked so hard through most of their lunchtimes and at home using our FrogLearn site over the past few weeks. This year, we revisited one of our favourite carols, ‘Joyeux Noel’ by Jilly Jarman. The performance included harmonies and trumpet and clarinet parts performed by our talented instrumentalists, and you can listen to our performance on the school website!

The Carol Festival, now in its 35th year, is a unique collaborative, non-competitive event which celebrates the musical talents in everyone regardless of ability. Our children were outstanding, a credit to the school and great ambassadors for Sing Up, Charanga and music in Cumbria. Children from North Lakes performed alongside singers and musicians from Beaconside, Hunter Hall, Kirkoswald, Lowther, Stainton, QEGS and UCC.

North Lakes would like to thank everyone who came along to support the children at this very special event: parents, governors, and staff; not forgetting everyone who made this event possible including Lakeland Music for selling tickets and St Andrew’s Church for hosting the event. Special thanks go to Jilly Jarman for composing the carol, accompanying and rehearsing with us.

During the evening there was a Salvation Army Foodbank Collection Point and the retiring collections raised an outstanding £1,000 which will be split between Cash for Kids and Jigsaw Children’s Hospice!