Valley Road School Dance into National Final

Valley Road School Dance Club have won the Regional heat in the Great Big Dance Competition which took place at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage.

The group of 22 dancers in Years 3-6 performed a contemporary dance to Out There by Sia with a David Attenborough voice over with the inspiration of the dance being how people can help change the world.

Dance teacher, Katie Campbell who is a parent at Valley Road School offered to run a breakfast dance at the school.  Kate said, “I’m Head of Dance at Newlands Girls School and I’ve previously taken my seniors to the same dance competition as it is a warm and supportive competition.  It is a competition just for schools not dance schools.  We were up against some big private schools who normally win the competition.  We didn’t have the best start on the day when we got stuck when the M40 was closed and only arrived 35 mins before the event started.”

There are 10 regional heats with the first and second placed schools going through to the final on 8 June in Oxford.

The group have been rehearsing for about 6 months once a week and in the lead up to the competition they performed in front of the school and at the Henley Youth Festival on the Kenton stage.

Valley Road School were scored 144 out of 200 points.  On announcing the winner, the judge said that the school which had won had won by a lot (second place scored 119).  Katie said, “I didn’t think it could be us as the standard was really high.  I thought we would come third or fourth.  Some of the kids have never performed on stage before.  They performed their socks off and it was very emotional.  There wasn’t a parent with a dry eye in the house when we were announced as winners.”

Eva Floyd who doesn’t go to dance lessons said, “I like learning how to do different dance moves.  The hardest part is learning the lifts and the positions.” Ruby Shaw aged 9 who also goes to JD Dance on a Saturday added, “I wasn’t surprised that we won!”

Katie added, “They were way more confident than I was!  We’re now tweaking the routine a bit for the final to make it even better.  It’s already been a brilliant experience and memory making especially for these kids who haven’t had anything like this for the last few years.”