One balmy morning in July, a group of us set off in a minibus to Ipswich High School. When we arrived, it was just as we imagined a manor house to look like. With the fields already half filled, we quickly found a spot to build our pop-up tent. 

On the first day, we checked out the drop-in activities which included a contemporary rock dance workshop. The session was run by a teacher from Ipswich High School and included lots of turns! In the evening, we watched High School Musical in an outdoor inflatable cinema (which everyone sang along to!) before retiring to our tents.

On Thursday, we covered the majority of our activities. Katie and Namie did a ‘Blood, Guts and Gore’ workshop, learning how fake wounds are made for stage and for film. The wounds looked so realistic and managed to frighten quite a few people!

After lunch, more of us returned to the dramatic tent for a lesson in unarmed stage combat. It was a great opportunity to make friends as we were paired up with people from other Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST) schools. Some of us ended the workshop on the floor ‘dead’! There was a commercial street dance workshop which both Ella and Marta participated in and we even got to dance to Janet Jackson! To end the day, there were performances by several bands. 

On Friday, we packed up our tents and grabbed breakfast before jumping on the mini-bus to head back to school. We were pretty tired but all of us agreed that we really enjoyed the experience and liked the variety of workshops, events, music and food. The GDST Multitude Festival was definitely a great start to our summer!