SV 5th graders spend musical day at campus
JACKSON TWP — Fifth graders from Haine and Evans City middle schools got a taste of what life will be like when they move up to the secondary school campus through the district's first “Band Collaboration Day.”
About 130 band students from the two schools traveled to the intermediate high school Thursday to work with secondary school band teachers, artists-in-residence and high school wind ensemble students.
“This idea is being able to energize and excite young students to stay in band,” said Varden Armstrong, band teacher at the intermediate high school.
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They started the day with instrumental-specific “master classes” led by the secondary band teachers and artists-in-residence, all part of the district's Academy of Choice performing arts program. High school wind ensemble students worked alongside the students, giving pointers, answering questions and just being there to chat.Tracy Glass, band teacher at Evans City Middle School, and Kelly Levere, band teacher at Haine Middle School, said their students had excitedly been talking about their upcoming trip to the intermediate high school for days. To the fifth graders, the high school kids might as well be rock stars.Their excitement carried throughout the morning during their master classes and a full band rehearsal afterward led by Robert Babick, the middle school band teacher.Armstrong said the elementary music teachers asked them to focus on the fifth graders in their band collaboration day as it's a transitional time for students in their band careers.Students at Seneca Valley begin playing instruments in fourth grade. By the end of their fifth-grade year, many students make a decision to stick with band or drop it, he said.It's understandable, Armstrong said, as fifth grade is a time where course work, activities and sports begin ramping up to secondary school levels. Band is just another thing from which they have to choose, Armstrong said.But if they can introduce the students to the instructors and opportunities they'll have at the middle and high schools, maybe they will choose to stick with it, he said.Glass said at the high school students can work with artists-in-residence and band teachers who specialize in the instruments they play, whereas in the elementary school there is only one band teacher for all the students.“It's just such a good motivation for them to see where they'll be in a few years,” she said.The day was so successful that Armstrong said they hope to do it again next year in some capacity. He'd also like to expand it to include orchestra and chorus students as well.
