Oliver. Year 5 and 6 production

I have written before about school productions and the time taken off timetable to complete these productions and questioning what some children get out of these. In my larger campus where there is  100 to 120 student intake many children don't get a role and form part of the large chorus group, singing from the side of the stage. In my TX Campus, the small campus, the students work in year groups to complete a production. This term it was Year 5 and 6, 4 classes of students. James, the year group leader, wrote the script to make it as child friendly and while rewarding, a  challenge for our international students. While the children had their scripts and parts, and were rehearsing  the  whole cast songs in music classes, production practice did not start until after the inspectorate team left. The Year 5 and 6 team really worked hard and pulled it all together in 10 days. My congratulations to them. In the last 3 days the whole of the day was devoted to Oliver and rehearsals. As we are a much smaller campus and as James wrote the script, all the children had parts, many having multiple parts. Everyone appeared at least 3 times on stage and not a brief walk on walk off role..So there was maximum participation by all the children not just the select few in major roles. Disruption to classes was minimal but intensive for the last 3 days. being based at TX and teaching all the students I was able to see and appreciate how many grew into their roles.