BY HARRISON, LYRA AND SIENNA

What a extraordinary way to end the day at JKPS.

On Thursday night, a few hundred parents, teachers and students gathered around a stage to watch six mystery contestants show off their musical talents. The event was called the “masked teacher” and involved teachers getting dressed up in disguises and singing. The audience had to guess who was behind each mask and the evening of fun was to raise money for a new sensory room at school. Coach Leo and Ms. George were the evening’s hosts and introduced each act one by one.

The first to step up was a sloth which was soon revealed to be our headteacher Mr. Patrick. He first tried to scale a nearby tree before crawling onto the stage with his big claws scratching the floor. He danced and sang to “Beat It” by Michael Jackson, trying to change his voice to lead us on a false trail. But his plan backfired leading to loads of children shouting out “It’s Mr. Patrick!!” when Coach Leo asked them to guess who was underneath the furry outfit.

Next up was “Toothless” – a dragon coated in black – and what a way to sing a song. She had a really beautiful voice which sounded like the enchanted sirens from the Greek legends. She sang a slow and calm song from Les Misérables and had us all mesmerised. Loads of students had no idea who she was until the end of the competition when everyone shouted: “Take it off, take it off, take it off!!” and Ms. Vicki was unmasked.

The third act was the legendary Spiderman singing the song “C’est La Vie”. Instead of flying in from America, this female spidery friend webbed her way from Ireland and did an Irish jig on the stage. One of our intrepid Mog Chronicle reporters had worked out the identity of the secret superhero because she spotted Spidey rushing through the Early Years area shortly before taking to the stage. But Ms. Mary deceived many others who had no idea who she was.

A cat then came gracefully onto the stage and suddenly stammered: “I need to take this off!” It turned out that this teacher’s cat mask restricted her breathing and vision. Thankfully she was ok and performed her musical number masterfully – even managing to keep her disguise on – but the mask was pretty sweaty afterwards. Ms. Donna – aka the cat – said she was going to have words with her husband who bought it for her.

The final act stole the show. As the Dynamic Duo took to the stage with the song “Freed From Desire” by Gala the crowd started to go bonkers. With the smooth grooves of the teachers under the stage’s spotlight, the audience started jumping up and down and showing off their own moves. The Dynamic Duo were revealed to be the one and only Ms. Victoria and Ms. Chloe, although many in the crowd wrongly guessed that it was Ms. Ellen and Ms. Chloe.

After a tense 15 minutes when the audience were asked to cast their votes, the Dynamic Duo were revealed as the overall winners and nobody could hold in their excitement. Ms. Victoria and Ms. Chloe performed their song a second time – this time with their faces revealed – and the crowd went wild. The Year 2 students were especially proud of their teachers. “I can’t believe my teacher actually won!!” said Jude, jumping up and down in delight.

Coach Leo and Ms. Georgia revelled in seeing the JKPS students try to guess who was who and couldn’t help but notice that one rogue name kept popping up even though he wasn’t on stage: Mr. Bruno. We at the Mog Chronicle think this means Mr. Bruno definitely needs to take to the stage in disguise next year!  

Thank you to our incredible JKPS teachers for being such good sports and so much fun. And there is still time to donate if you can: https://www.fojkps.org/donate

UPDATE: The Masked Teacher event helped to raise £2,400 which will go towards a new sensory room at school.