On Thursday 12th and Friday 13th March, the Marian Hall was packed with an excited and inquisitive audience to see the senior school’s 2009 production of Daisy Pulls It Off, a play by Denise Deegan. The play is set in the 1920s and follows the story of an elementary school girl Daisy, who earns a place at Grangewood, a public school for girls. Throughout her time at Grangewood, Daisy fi nds herself being thrown into exciting and dangerous adventures, which lead to her and her best friend Trixie (played by me) uncovering the school’s hidden treasure. Along the way Daisy learns that being rich and fortunate isn’t all as good as it seems and that by staying true to herself and her friends, she will always succeed and be happy. The two performances seemed to go extremely well, even though we were performing on Friday 13th! There were many laughs throughout the show and the cast and crew all agreed that the show went better than we could ever have hoped! Speaking on behalf of the cast, we all felt extremely proud and delighted that we were all part of such an amazing production. Although the costumes and hair arrangements will not be missed much, the atmosphere and team spirit will be. Overall, it was a fantastic experience to be part of and we all look forward to the next production!

Descartes could never have imagined this - the transformation of his wise words I think therefore I am  into inter-house rivalry at Alton Convent School.  His wise maxim was the theme of Drama Day in the senior school. In the end St Francis won by a whisker, with St Peter and St John vying for second and third places. Finally it was the  meticulousness of their tidying up that put St Peter in the number two slot.

Drama  Day was full of drama. It says something about the nature of this school of ours that for a whole day, without a timetable, without bells, without teachers being overtly supervisory, the girls, ably led by the fifth form, just got on with it. Their organisation was excellent, and the day's only mild hiccup came when Mr Heath mistook of a bunch of grapes, a carefully home made prop, for Brussells Sprouts.

Year 5's trip to Salesian Colleg to see the play 'Godspell' was a great success. The cast all had very nice singing voices and were very good at acting. 'Godspell' told the story of Jesus and how Judas betrayed him to the Romans. Throughout the play, Jesus told stories to all the people around him. My favourite story was the one about the sheep and the goats. Jesus said to the sheep on his right hand, "You shall be rewarded in the kingdom of my father." He said to the others, "You goats shall be cursed into the fiery pits of hell". When Judas betrayed Jesus, the music was very sad. The songs were serious and filled with sadness. A big screen in the corner of the room showed pictures some of the time. The play was very well written and choreographed. The lighting and sound effects really set the mood well, happy or sad.

On Wednesday 11th March Years 4-6 and the boys from More House watched the senior school play, Daisy Pulls it Off. It was all about a girl who goes to a new school where pupils are playing tricks on her because she was clever and went to an elementary school.

Daisy and her new best friend, Trixie try to look for the treasure of the school and in the end Daisy finds it! Because Daisy gets tricks played on her, the teachers tell her off and she nearly gets expelled, but in the end the girl who plays most of the tricks is the one who nearly gets expelled instead.

Congratulations to Jessica , in Year 10, who has been selected for the National Youth Music Theatre’s annual production in August 2009. Every year, auditions are held nationwide for talented young people who have a keen interest in musical theatre. From these auditions, a final cast of 50 members is selected.

This year the NYMT will explore a new musical theatre production, working with a world-famous writer and composer to create a new musical. This production in London will be rehearsed residentially and showcased in August.

On Wednesday we had a story that was read to us by Mr Hoyes. He read a couple of stories to us one of them was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, that was my favourite. I really liked him reading Great Expectations because I think it was a wonderful story and he put a lot of expression into the story so you could see it in minds eye. After that we got given a poem. The poems we got given were originally stories that had been made into poems.
Then a bit later on we were taught some Spanish with Mrs Swann we learnt a lot like: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, sies, ocho, nueve, diez. And we also learnt that oi! comes from oiga meaning come over here and talk to me.

0n the 12th February Alton Convent School and Salesian College sixth forms joined together for an evening of comedy, drama and music. The aim was to raise funds in order to send handicapped children to Lourdes. The evening provided the audience with fantastic entertainment whilst socializing over a ploughman’s supper.

Some of the acts were original whilst others were taken from famous scripts such as Rowan Atkinson’s Elementary Dating, Fawlty Towers and songs from Mamma Mia, Wicked and the Spice Girls. There was a huge variety of entertainment from a musical interlude on the flute and hallelujah to a performance of rugby ballet and stand up comedy.

Year 5 and 6 enjoyed a wonderful visit to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on Thursday to see the Royal Ballet perform La Bayadère. After a safe coach journey up, we enjoyed our sandwich lunch in the splendid surroundings of the Crush Bar. Our seats, high up in the amphitheatre, allowed us to take in the broad sweep of Makarova’s choreography to Minkus’ score. Mrs Ongley had taken care to brief pupils on the story beforehand, but even without this help our pupils would have had no difficulty following the plot thanks to the clarity of the dancing.

This year's Upper Prep Play was a wonderful adaptation for the stage of T S Eliot's moving and subtle poem 'Journey of the Magi', the script skilfully put together by our own Prep English Coordinator, Anne Bothwell. The roles of the thee Magi were played by children form year 3 to year 6, as the journey progressed from summer palaces to a temperate valley below the snowline, with many of the scenes stolen by the grumbling assistants, their roles again taken by pupils from each of the classes in turn as the journey proceeded.