THERE were plenty of animated little faces who delighted the crowd at the City of Orange Eisteddfod on Thursday morning when the primary schoolchildren competed in verse-speaking choirs.
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Adjudicator Paul March from North Rocks told the children and the packed auditorium at Orange Function Centre he was impressed with the standard.
“Particularly the attentiveness you showed towards your conductor,” he told the children.
Handing down his adjudication in the section for year 1 and year 2 verse speaking choirs he complimented all the entrants.
“Your work has really come alive here today,” he said.
In this section an excited group of Orange Anglican Grammar School children squealed with delight when they were announced as the winners with 93 points.
However, just a couple of marks separated the groups with Kinross Wolaroi School coming in second, St Mary’s Catholic Primary School third and Nashdale Public School being awarded a highly commended.
The only entrant in the mime section, the year 2 class from St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, was awarded first place.
“I don’t always have to give a first prize,” Mr March told the performers.
“But your performance was so entertaining, and I knew exactly what you were doing the whole time - you told the story well,” he said.
Teacher Andrew Ryan said all the year 2 children were included in the mime sequence.
“The children practise in school time as part of their drama studies and it is really nice to see the quieter children use some wonderful facial expressions and gain more confidence,” he said.
The children performed St Mary’s Circus with some of the students making up the animated crowd, while others took the role of ringmaster, dancing horses, clowns and even a human canon!
Mr March said it was pleasing to see the auditorium packed with supportive parents and grandparents.
Today the five, six and seven years sections of speech and drama will be held at the function centre, with the eight years section to be held in the afternoon and the junior speech and drama scholarship to be held tonight.