Year 6 Class Assembly

This morning, our class amazed our parents and the rest of the school with our spectacular assembly, all about the history of the Vikings and their impact on Britain. We sang, danced, marched, shouted, battled and a whole lot more. We managed to jam-pack lots of Viking facts into a thirty minute show, which was quite a challenge as time was precious! Since we have been studying all about the Vikings for our History topic this term, it was our big chance to teach everyone what we had learnt. We only had a week to prepare for it so we had to be really focussed and work well as one big team.

Everyone had their own parts to play; Viking warriors, local villagers and monks. We even had a dance team which performed two beautifully atmospheric water and fire pieces, using beautifully created ribbon and tissue props. It was very important to wear Viking clothes which were true to the time. For example, did you know that Vikings never actually had horns on their helmets? This has been a myth created over time! Thanks to Mrs Shawyer and Mrs Watkins, we even had beards painted on our faces (only the men of course!) We were even allowed to keep our beards on for the rest of the day, which got a few funny looks in the playground!

Our act was held in the church, which was perfect for telling this story. We are so lucky to have access to all these new parts of the church and we used mostly every square metre of it; including the lights, screens, mixing desk and loud speakers. We didn’t have to use microphones though because, as Vikings, we had to shout loudly without any other help. At first, this was very nerve-wracking because it’s such a big room, but after enough practice we soon got used to it and couldn’t wait to perform it.

There were many different scenes in our show, ranging from: our dragon boat sailing out to battle, the villagers working hard back home, the monks praying and then being attacked in their own monastery by the Viking warriors, and at the end we even had an emotional scene about a Viking who got killed and was send to Valhalla (Viking heaven) in a special ceremony. Every time a scene changed Mrs Shawyer changed the light mood in the church and Mr Jarmain worked at the desk changing the music to fit the scene. Mr Peck even wrote and recorded some Viking songs for us to sing over. When we all sang loudly together it was an amazing feeling and we could see that our families looked proud. The rest of the children looked really focussed on what we were doing as it was a very dramatic performance.

One day, when we were researching into Viking history in class, we used the style of ‘fast poems’ to describe different parts of Viking life. We used these fast poems throughout our performance and it gave everyone a chance, not only to show our creativity, but also to speak loudly and clearly to the audience.

Here are a few quotes from members of our class following our performance:

Noel: “On stage I felt proud and happy to express drama and to show everyone our talent.”

Zoe: “Practicing every day paid off in the end!”

Harry: “We all spoke very clearly to the audience. It was very nerve-wracking, standing there in front of everyone because if you get it wrong it will be quite embarrassing!”

Ruby: “All the children wanted this to be their best performance as it would be our last. We wanted to go out with a big BANG!”

Now it’s all over, we all feel relieved and happy that it went so well; we didn’t forget our lines and we acted our parts with passion. We also hoped that we taught our audience lots of interesting facts about the Vikings and their part in British history.

Class 6J would like to say a big thanks to everyone who helped us: Mr Jarmain for helping to organise us and doing the music, Mrs Shawyer for lighting props and dressing us, Mr Peck for his songs and props, Mrs Watkins for our beards! And a special thanks to 6C for making so many amazing props! We’ll help you when it’s your turn!