QE School saw four extremely talented year nine pupils, Jasmine Larkman, Alice Yarney, Esther Smith and Grace Scott-McDowell, attend a morning of slam poetry performance, guided writing and composition workshops with John Paul O’Neill, a nationally acclaimed slam poet and director of the London based spoken word and performance poetry organisation, Farrago Poetry. By lunchtime, all four girls had written a poem that they felt confident about performing in front of the festival audience.
During the workshop, the students were coached in performance techniques and encouraged to edit and craft their writing further, ready for their ambitious performance in the evening.
The crowning glory of a truly inspiring day, was when all four girls performed their poems to a jam packed audience at St Peter's Church Hall in Budleigh, along with students from four other Secondary Schools in Devon.
Caroline Wilson, English teacher at QE said, "This has been an excellent day for all the students who took part. The opportunity to step out of the classroom environment and really write from the heart with people who are also poets, is something precious and valuable for all these young people here today. I really hope that this is the start of a life-long writing habit for all those involved that will also feed back into their English studies at GCSE level and beyond".
QE always encourages the use of creative learning outlets to support the continuous progress in all aspects of their students’ education.
QE would like to give a special thanks to David Marston of the Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival education outreach team for help in organising this event for their students.
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