National Poetry Day is a day involving the annual mass celebration on the first Thursday of October that encourages everyone to make, experience and share poetry with family and friends. Each year, we come together because voices, words and stories help to bridge understanding in our community. This year, it was fantastic to see pupils sharing their thoughts, ideas and responses to a range of poems which explored different aspects of our environment and debating over which poem they liked the best and why.

As part of the lesson, we also then discussed the role of the Poet Laureate, a position currently held by Simon Armitage, in order to then introduce our competition: Warlingham’s Poet Laureate. Each class had the opportunity to test out their creativity and write their own poem about the environment, either praising an aspect of the environment or writing about something they wished to change. The winning poem or poems were selected by the class teacher and then passed on to Mrs Christie and myself for judging, with the winner becoming Warlingham’s own Poet Laureate.

The quality of the poems was excellent and it was amazing to see pupils engaging with the topic so thoughtfully and thinking so carefully about how to creatively convey their ideas using language and structure. After a difficult decision, it was decided that the winning poem was The Earthquake by Year 8 student Sid W.

Well done Sid for your fantastic entry which really captured this year’s theme. A special mention must also go to our runners up, Henry L, Leah P and Amelia B in Year 9 for their fantastic entries.

We do hope that the pupils enjoyed celebrating the day and that they have been inspired to engage more with poetry in the future.

Rachel Dewey
Second in Charge of English
 

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Sid's Winning Poem 
 

The Earthquake

It was a normal day

Birds tweeting and children playing

But then all this happiness went away
 

The ground rumbled and houses fell

All they had built was being destroyed

This is an example that the earth is unwell

This mighty earthquake, big and strong

Was making sure

That this town is long gone

We have to stop this before it’s too late

Otherwise our planet

Will meet its fate.

By Sid W, Year 8