Celebrating National Poetry day 2024

This year's theme is 'Your Voice Counts'

At Southborough High School, we place great importance on celebrating all things literary.

On Thursday 3 October it was National Poetry Day, an annual mass celebration to encourage all to enjoy, discover and share poetry. This year, the theme at Southborough was “Your Voice Counts’’ and this was interpreted through verse in a wide and wonderful number of ways.

The underlying message for our students was to think deeper about the concept of the importance of everyone having ‘a voice’ and what it means to different people.

Special Guest Speaker

Making the celebratory day extra special was VIP Inua Ellams MBE – writer & curator, cross disciplinary artist, internationally touring performer, poet and playwright screenwriter, graphic artist and designer – who spent the best part of the day at Southborough speaking with our students, running a special poetry workshop and attending a literary lunch held in the library.        

Poetry across the curriculum

From the moment our students started their school day, they were given the chance to explore a range of poetry - both past and present – and there were competitions galore for them to engage with.

Throughout the day – and whatever the subject – teachers were encouraged to instil elements of poetry into their lesson plans – for example ‘writing in the style of’, reading aloud, taking key words from a topic and reducing it to one rhyming couplet to share, reflections and discussions based on the poem topic, choosing interesting words from a topic and including them in a poem – or visualising the events of a poem in a story board or poster. Teachers were encouraged to hand out ‘Golden Ticket’s to students that excelled. These tickets will be put into a prize draw and the winner will be announced shortly!

Poetry Workshop & Symposium with Inua Ellams MBE

Students were encouraged to enter a poetry writing competition based on the theme of ‘Your Voice Counts’. A collection of poems were also displayed in and around the school, including teachers’ favourite poems that they wished to share with students in and around the school.

The NPD Poetry competition proved popular with well over a hundred submissions in response to our call for entries. The quality was incredible –with many entries very emotive indeed.

Authors of the short-listed top 15 poems –along with other students who had shown particular interest and talent in their poetry writing – were invited to take part in a morning Poetry Workshop in the library, run by VIP Inua. Inua talked about how words express emotions and students were put to task, creating their own mini poems which they then shared with the rest of the class.

The Poetry Symposium held in the library at lunchtime was well attended with guests sharing their love of poetry. Listening to an interesting address delivered by Inua, students also got the opportunity to share some freshly prepared sandwiches and cakes as a treat, too!

The main feature of this event was the Grand Final of the poetry competition, where our five amazing finalists, namely Lewis S (7DRA), Jan B (8HCR), Layth A (9CLC), James F (7EST) and Emmanuel Yonas (7DPE) read out their poems to an eager audience. The standard of entry was incredibly high and it was the rather unenviable task of our special guest Mr Inua Ellams to select the winners and present them with their special certificates.

The winners of the poetry competition were as follows:

3rd:Prize: Lewis S (7DA)	2nd: Prize: James F (7EST)	1st Prize: Layth A (9CLC)

To summarise, everyone’s efforts resulted in a day packed full of creative energy and productivity. And best of all, it was a brilliant way of bringing people together in the happiest way possible –via the heart and mind.

A big thank you must go to our special guest –writer, curator performer and poet - Inua Ellams MBE for sharing his poetic skills and talents with our students and for making the day so special. Many thanks also to Ms Salloo, Mrs Panesar and the rest of the English department, together with our Sixth Form English Literature students –Angus, Nouredine, Laura and Grace -  for organising such a rewarding and enjoyable day.