On Wednesday, all Year 9 students had the incredible opportunity to spend the day with two amazing poets, Michael Vidon and Steve Larkin, in a workshop that was nothing short of inspiring! Together, they crafted powerful poems to raise awareness about global warming and other environmental challenges, all while weaving in as many languages as they could. The afternoon was electric as they took to the stage to perform their outstanding creations in the Slam! Their creativity and passion were absolutely awe-inspiring—but don’t just take our word for it… Here are a few of their glowing reviews:
“The Year 9s had an amazing ‘poetry slam’ workshop throughout the whole of Wednesday. We were lucky enough to have 2 poets come into school to animate the day, Steve Larkin and the bilingual poet Michael Vidon. After a morning of hearing a few of their own creations, we had the opportunity to write our very own poems in groups. The workshop was held in partnership with Cape Farewell, with whom the school is collaborating to try and reverse climate change, so the theme of our poems was ‘Climate change’. From there we were free to write whatever we felt like was an important issue to us. Michael then taught us how to incorporate different languages into our work which was very fun and interesting!
Finally, the highly anticipated ‘slam’ arrived. The whole year group seated themselves in the senior hall and every group stood up to perform their poems. Hearing so many different languages being spoken by pupils was so fascinating and we all loved having the opportunity to present our own written works.” – Gaby, Year 9
“I really enjoyed poetry day because we got to learn about different styles, and we were able to mix languages through writing. It was also an amazing to be able to bond with different people in our group and learn about their linguistic backgrounds. It was fun listening to Steve and Michael discuss their careers and show us some of their poetry.” – Diane, Year 9
“Yesterday, we all had an amazing time. Even though I wasn’t there the whole day to enjoy all of the fun, I heard many people saying they really enjoyed it. We have learnt lots of different styles of poetry and really explored the different languages we can contrast in. I really enjoyed hearing and understanding different languages.” – Noa, Year 9
Adélaïde Martin, Language Assistant
