Prospectus
Annual Poetry Day Celebration
Library Competition and Poetry Readings
The national theme for this year’s annual event was “Games”, which we expanded to include sport and Olympics. As usual, year 7 and 8 pupils had written their own poetry for our competition. The poems are displayed in the library and were viewed with interest by visitors during the school’s October Open Evening. Winners were awarded prizes for their gold, silver and bronze medal winning poems at our lunchtime celebration in the library.
Members of staff and Laura (year 9) read to a pupil audience, who were entertained beforehand by theme music from various TV sports programmes. The poems included ‘batting order’ a dream of Olympics participation, which was written by a former pupil when aged 13, as well as an anonymous contribution which was composed by a year10 rugby fan when challenged to demonstrate his affirmation that rugby, not football, inspires poetry! Dr Pearse read the poem which had captured the passion of the game.
Readings were chosen to communicate not only love for cricket, rugby, swimming, tennis, running and football but also to show how participation can unite peoples (a game of football between British and German soldiers on No Man’s Land, Christmas 1914) and uplift those who are no longer able bodied. Mrs Coker (Librarian) provided home-made cake and coffee for staff, and pupils were given small cakes which had been decorated with the colours of the Olympic flag.
Mrs Houldey praised pupils for their poems, when she was photographed with competition winners earlier in the day, and was pleased to attend the lunchtime occasion.
Mrs Coker said,
As always, I enjoyed listening to all the poems, especially Miss Donaldson’s performance of “Viv” (for cricketer, Vivian Richards) by Faustin Charles. The audience jumped when Miss Donaldson called “Ball for six!”
Mrs Stride (Librarian) said,
By choosing to read in her native German (“Die Joggerin” by Anette Pfeiffer-Klӓrle), Mrs Forster demonstrated that the sound of the words can be enjoyed, even when their meaning might not be easy to understand.
Photos of all participants are on display in school’s main reception area.
