ABSTRACT
My personal theme of the past week has been rushing home to see end-of-term plays at schools that my children no longer attend. How sad can you get? Should a parent really be taking up space in the primary school assembly hall when her youngest is 18? And even for a school governor, is it not a bit over the top to attend both the technical rehearsal and the closing night of West Side Story without so much as a niece in the chorus? No, I stand unrepentant. Both were fabulous and set all sorts of educational hares running through my head: within seven days I saw both ends of the school performance spectrum. It went all the way from four-year-olds just about remembering to mime sturdy digging motions while singing a song about buried treasure, to 18-year-olds doing Officer Krupke with full-on athletic choreography and appropriate dramatic sneering.
