Soul Knights Belgium tour a success!
Our School soul band - Soul Knights - went on their first European music tour at half term and delivered three amazing concerts at venues across Belgium.
Our first concert took place in Ostend at a residential home, and for quite a number of students, this was their first ever live performance. We were well received and produced an energetic and soulful performance to a receptive audience. Our second concert took place in Knokke Heist at the local community centre where our audience was made up of residents from a local care home, who were bussed in, and members of the local community. Our performance was even more polished than the first and our ‘Roadies’ managed to get us set up in record time! On a very snowy day in Ypres, we performed our last concert in St Michael’s church. Audience members included two couples who had been staying at the same hostel as us. Some of the performers in soul band are also choristers so we treated the audience to a choral piece to begin the performance.
The trip was not just performances and the group had the opportunity to have free time (excellent for map-reading and time-keeping skills for those allowed off in groups) in the beautiful Belgium city centres of Ghent, Brussels, Bruges and Ypres. All of these cities had amazing market squares and the children excelled themselves at finding not only lots of shops but doing mini architectural and historic site tours.
In Ghent we visited the Cathedral; in Brussels many of us walked to the Royal Palace and passed many of the European Union key buildings; and in Bruges we saw the historic Town Hall (as well as purchasing items from the Club Bruges football shop and the Lego store). In Ypres we all visited the Menin Gate (a major World War I monument dedicated to more than 54,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Ypres Salient and have no known grave) and several of us went into the very moving ‘In Flanders Fields’ museum. A particular highlight was being able to walk into lots of different chocolate shops and try lots of free chocolate! Many of us managed to try the Belgian waffles which are delicious and some students tried a ‘Ghent Nose’ (a pyramid-shaped jelly sweet similar to a jelly baby).
Our Hostel in De Hann was excellent and we had three course meals each evening with many of us going up for seconds, particularly for the home-made soups. The options available to us with the continental breakfast also proved popular. On Saturday 14th February, we took over an entire restaurant in Brussels for our evening meal and this is where the tour phrase ‘Don’t go there, Sister’ was created and then included within our encore piece at the final performance.
Some of our experiences during the week included a session at a local bowling centre, games of 'Werewolf' and 'Pass the Pigs' run by Mr Smith, and Karaoke and card game sessions run by Mr Chamberlin.
The students represented themselves and the school in a magnificent fashion and we received compliments frequently from members of the public about how we had such a lovely group. We hope to make this a regular event in the future and if possible, we will visit Germany in 2027.
Mr Smith
