Christmas Concert 2020

On December 16, we held our annual Christmas concert. With COVID-19 dictating what could and could not be done in schools, this was a significant challenge to overcome. Staff were tired, our music teacher was away from work due to being a close contact to someone with COVID-19. I spent a great deal of time determining if the effort would be worth it considering how my staff was feeling and how many students we were having attend everyday.

In the end, I decided that the energy and time required to pull off a virtual Christmas Concert was worth it. I had to invest a great deal of time to organize, “rally the troops”, do the recording of all the presentations, and do the video editing. But in the end, we had a wonderful final product which was immensely appreciated by the staff, the students, and our school families. I received feedback that family across the country was able to watch their grandchildren, nieces, and nephews for the first time ever as they performed in the Christmas Concert.

I believe that a number of my staff could not visualize what the final product would look like, which then caused them to express anxiousness about spending time and energy on this project. There was a feeling that learning was already behind this year, and “another thing on the plate” was going to cause further interruptions to student learning. I had to spend a great deal of time encouraging and outlining all aspects of the concert to continue to develop buy-in. But once the final product was presented, all nervousness about the concert was removed and feelings of joy and success came from all staff.

I have frequently expressed to my staff this year that as often as I can, I want us to provide as much ‘normalcy’ to our students as possible. Preparing and performing a Christmas Concert is a tradition in our school and we needed to make it happen this year. Even though students were at home watching the concert with their families, we had a live chat and people were able to engage with each other and express how much they enjoyed the concert and how it helped enhance the Christmas season. I would count that as a big win for everyone.

If you need a little ‘Christmas spirit’ in your life right now, take some time and watch the concert below!