Then and Now: The lower school Halloween parade

“The excitement of the students fills the entire school.” —Patrick Lee, Lower School Assistant Principal 

Come October, visitors to One Waverley Place can feel a swell of euphoric energy coursing through the classroom pods, the playgrounds, student assemblies and even the libraries. A holiday is approaching that promises candy, costumes and cacophonous fun. As students are apt to sing this time of year, “This is Halloween! This is Halloween!”

Has ASL always come alive with pumpkins, fancy dress and Monster Mash moves on 31 October? Not according to longtime lower school teacher Elaine Robertson (ASL 1991-present). Raised in Scotland, Elaine grew up with the Celtic festival of Samwain, an occasion when she and her friends might have dressed up to perform poetry for neighbors and carve jack-o’-lanterns out of turnips: “They were much harder to work with than pumpkins!” Elaine admitted. “I suspect it was the adults’ cunning plan to keep kids busy”. In 20th-century England, children may have anticipated bonfires and garden fireworks for Guy Fawkes Night, but there wasn’t a prominent tradition of trick-or-treating door-to-door on “All Hallow’s Eve” as there was in the US, where at least 80% of ASL families hailed from in the ’70s and ’80s. A few years after Elaine’s son, Calum ’03, joined K1 in 1990, parents organized a school parade for children and teachers to wear costumes and experience Halloween festivities. That tradition continues today, with a few tweaks! In honor of Halloween 2023, we asked employees, former parents and alumni to reflect on ASL’s spookiest, most spectacular pastime. 

1960s 
When Margaret Coloney ’78 began kindergarten at ASL in 1966, Halloween celebrations were nonexistent both at school and in London. In fact, she and her younger sister, Catherine ’81, had never heard of the holiday until Catherine’s Grade 3 classmate invited them to a party at her flat in Holland Park, where she and several other American families shared a large apartment building. “Neighbors decorated their doors with paper pumpkins, and we would trick-or-treat to the pumpkin doors in groups.” For Margaret and Catherine, the occasion paled in comparison to the annual Guy Fawkes Night bonfire they grew up attending in their South Kensington neighborhood. “To this day, Halloween is my least favorite night,” Margaret jokes. 

1970s
While yearbooks and archived calendars give some recognition to Halloween during the school’s first decade in its St. John’s Wood location, the celebrations appear to have been more muted. Lower school students could expect a decorated library, a screening of a festive film and a ghost story or two. For Katie Buter ’82, who spent Grades 4-9 at ASL, from 1973 to 1979, what stands out most to her about Halloween during those years are the strange looks she and her classmates received from neighbors and patrons in St. John’s Wood, who were baffled by the costumes they donned to Gilbert’s and Panzer’s in search of candy. Students trick-or-treated to American homes in the neighborhood, and the bravest among them would muster up the courage to knock on Paul and Linda McCartney’s door. “After all, Linda was American!” Katie reminds us.

1980s
Middle school teacher Ruth Heuman (ASL 1970-2009) remembers Halloween having an exotic element to it when she was raising children in the early ’80s. “Neighbors had to be told in advance that we planned on trick or treating with a group of children so they would be prepared for us,” she explains. At ASL, the Grade 5 team organized a party, and the Lower School had their parade. The Grade 6 and 7 teams were less inclined to get into the Halloween spirit, though records indicate that Ms. Donna (Geller) Hirsch (ASL 1974-2006) teamed up with the middle school Student Council to sponsor a “Fancy Dress Happening” in 1980. Families were also invited to gather in the Commons and the Annenberg Theater for an event called “Love at First Bite,” where yearbook staff served up chili and “witches’ brew” before showing The Omega Man. 

1990s
By the time former lower school principal Julie Ryan (ASL 1994-2013) arrived in 1994, the lower school Halloween parade was already a mainstay of the ASL annual festivities. Though children once marched through the school corridors in costume, it relocated to the Farmer Family Gymnasium, with students and teachers lining the perimeter in noisy anticipation and parents and staff spilling out from the balcony. Before Assistant Principal Patrick Lee (ASL 1995-present) had the honors, John Smithies (ASL 2002-13) was parade emcee. 

Julie Ryan still laughs when she relays what happened in 1995: she dressed up her labrador Toby in a blonde wig and cowboy outfit and brought him to the parade. Midway through the event, Toby curled up and fell asleep in the middle of the gym. There was an audible gasp when, at the parade’s conclusion, Toby stood up and approached Julie; the audience had mistaken the costumed dog for a Lower School student! 

Middle school aide Sandhya Jois (ASL 2006-present) has numerous fond memories of helping her children, Rekha ’07 and Vivek ’11, get ready for the Halloween parade. For a while, off-the-rack (or indeed, Amazon) costumes were hard to come by, and parents like Sandhya were busy fashioning creations from scratch. When Vivek’s inflatable astronaut spacesuit sprang a leak, his grandfather came to the rescue by patching it up just before showtime. 

In addition to the afternoon parade, there was a period of time when families would come to campus over the weekend to trick-or-treat to parent volunteers. “Children came away with piles of sweets,” recounts kindergarten teacher John O’Toole (ASL 1991-present). Between the “full-blown” class parties with large goodie bags and the gymnasium trick-or-treating, the candy loot was extraordinary. John has dressed up in many group costumes with his colleagues over the years—a favorite was his Wicked Witch get-up when the Grade 3 team paraded as characters from The Wizard of Oz—but he is also partial to the lower maintenance, creative ideas he has helped bring to life, such as when he dressed up as a lamp.

2000s
As the Halloween parade continued to gain momentum, PE teachers began coordinating grade-wide dances that could punctuate the event. Grades 1 and 2 learned choreography to the Ghostbusters theme song, while Grades 3 and 4 performed The Monster Mash. These special dances continue today. For alumni parent and devoted PCA volunteer Farah Alaghband P ’11, whose daughter, Roxanne ’11, was in Lower School from 1998 to 2003, the Halloween parade was the highlight of the fall. “I cried at ALL of those parades,” she recently shared. “The children looked so cute and the teachers had yet again outdone themselves by making amazing costumes.”

If you were to poll teachers about the best faculty costume in recent years, the answer would be unanimous. “The rollercoaster!” cried lower school assistants Sarah Ong (ASL 1994-present) and Sue Moffat (ASL 1992-present) when they were interviewed. In 2015, specialist teachers Robert Davis (ASL 2015-17), Manu Garcia (ASL 2014-present), Bronwyn Harrison (ASL 2001-17) and Elaine Robertson joined (centripetal) forces to be a roller coaster in motion. The spectacle delighted all of the parade viewers that year and continues to be talked about almost a decade later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now

Thanks to the parent volunteers, Lower School Reception is ablaze with cobwebs, friendly ghost inflatables, orange and black balloons, original student artwork  and no less than 110 pumpkins. 

As Sarah Ong and Sue Moffat explained, decorations don’t come up until the Friday before Halloween because it can cause “overstimulation.” Still, you can hear children discussing costume ideas as early as September. The much-anticipated Halloween parade will take place on Waverley Park this year, weather-permitting. Patrick Lee will be joined by his student co-master of ceremonies, Ishani ’32, who also got to choose the lower school team costume (hint: Patrick’s slumber party pajama theme was vetoed). Patrick offers,“Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because it brings the community together with treats, some tricks and dancing.”  

When prompted, he shared that one of his favorite tricks he and his Grade 1 team pulled off was dressing up in all green, wigs and all, with each participant revealing a letter sign that spelled GANG GREEN. “We thought we were hysterical,” Patrick laughs. “The kids had no idea.” What is Patrick’s advice for having a successful parade experience? “Don’t assume you know what a child’s costume is,” he advises. “Did you know there is a huge difference between a princess, a fairy princess and a butterfly princess? That’s not a mistake you make twice.”

We extend heartfelt gratitude to the teachers, parents and administrators and of course our Halloween-loving children for making this traditional holiday a smashing pumpkin success year after year. Who you gonna call?