We have been celebrating National Poetry Day with our very own Poetry Slam events. Students from across the year groups have been competing with poetry performances to gain competition points for their houses. In this house competition, students gained points for memorisation and preparation, verbal presentation and non-verbal performance. We had judges from across our houses, including teachers, support staff and our 6th Form Library Leaders. The event was hosted and organised by our librarians with fresh and funny poems that connect our students with poetry in a fun and relatable way.
Results
The atmosphere was palpable, with the audience cheering the performers throughout the event. With each performer being able to gain up to 9 points, the final scores were:
Derngate winning with 73 judging points!
Franklins coming in second place with 66 judging points.
Rockingham coming in third place with 40 judging points.
Abington coming in fourth place with 38 judging points.
Silverston coming in last place with 37 judging points.
All our performers deserve great applause for the courage they showed in taking the stage with their chosen poem. As Ms Cechova said while hosting: ‘Remember, bravery comes only where there is already fear, and if you are nervous that means you are also the bravest of us all today!’
Mrs Walding, Head of House Derngate, spoke to us about her experience working with the library team organising this event: “It has been wonderful to see students building in confidence during the performances, being respectful, encouraging and kind to their peers too.”
Our only performer from 6th Form, Divine, spoke about her experience taking part: “My experience of the poetry slam was nerve-wracking as I was so nervous that I would forget all the words I memorised. However, I was encouraged to continue with my paper poem in my hand, which helped me to make a comeback and finish my performance.”
Three of our fifteen judges were our 6th Form Gold Award Library Leaders, Senia, Badriyah and Andras. Here is a quote from Senia about her experience on the judging panel: “I was proud of the talent I saw across many year groups; the confidence of the performers and the amazing support from the audience was truly admirable.”
Highlights
Our Poetry Slams started strong with Year 11, 12 & 13s. We’ve seen amazing performances from our oldest students, and we’ve also had staff members from across departments compete. The first day was taken away by Derngate competitors, with amazing 24 points gained between them. Cameron from Year 11 performed the poem ‘In a thousand years,’ Divine from Year 12 performed the poem ‘Sprouting’, and Mrs Jamieson from Internal Reflection performed the poem ‘Truth.’ We’ve also seen great performances from Abington and Franklins.
On the second Poetry Slam, Year 10 performers wowed the judges with funny and touching performances. The victory went to Derngate again with amazing 18 points. We’ve seen Kwasi with the poem ‘Haiku: Six Soccer Snapshots’ and Dumitru with the poem ‘Crew Love.’ Derngate's victory was secured by a last-minute stand-in, Keira, who performed the poem ‘History Remembers.’ All our Year 10s showed great determination and respect in performing and gaining points for their house.
On October 1st, National Poetry Day, we saw amazing Year 9 performers. This time, Rockingham took the victory with a smashing 15 points. Nishchay from Rockingham performed the poem ‘Smile Please ’, and Holly performed the poem ‘I Am.’ We’ve also seen stunning performances that earned standing ovations from Eve from Rockingham and Isla-May from Franklins. Eve performed the poem ‘Life Is Not A Video Game ’, and Isla-May performed the poem ‘Poppy fields and Cedar Trees’, both showcasing amazing preparation, verbal presentation, and non-verbal performance, and gaining the full 9 points.
Our Year 8 Poetry Slam came very close. The top three houses came only 1 point apart, with Rockingham taking the final victory with 12 points. London performed the poem ‘What's in My Mind?’ and Hugas performed the poem ‘I'm Not a Kid.’ Our Year 8 students showed amazing determination with a total of eight performers taking part.
Our final Poetry Slam was for Year 7 performers. We had stunning 11 performances! Franklins took the daily win with 33 points, jumping from 3rd overall to 2nd. The highest scoring performances for Franklins were from Danielius performing the poem ‘Gamer’ and Jeronda with the poem ‘Twelve Years Young,’ both scoring the full 9 points for their house! We’ve also seen Isabelle with the poem ‘What's in My Mind?’ score 8 points, and Daniel with the poem ‘Tell it to the Dog’ score 7 points. The other notable 9-point performances were David from Abington with the poem ‘The Spine-Tingling Horror of 0% ’, Harley from Silverstone with the poem Excuses’, and Pearl from Abington with the poem ‘Refugee.’ We couldn’t be prouder of our Year 7s and their amazing talent showcase during the poetry slam.
What’s next?
Poetry is good for oracy and public speaking. It’s also a form of self-expression, and most importantly, it connects people. Poets with their audience and poems with their readers. All the poems performed during our Poetry Slams are available from the poetry collection, poetry anthologies and verse novels from our school library. You can search our library catalogue here: https://uk.accessit.online/nrt46