As part of HVC’s involvement in this year’s Poetry By Heart competition, our Y8 students are choosing and learning poems that have a special meaning to them in preparation for reciting them competitively in front of their peers. Each student is being asked to choose one or two poems which they will memorise and perform in class, with each of the winners taking to the stage to recite their own poems before a published local poet at the College level of the competition.

The nationally-organised competition aims to encourage school and college students between the ages of 14 and 18 to learn and recite poetry by heart. The culmination will be a grand national event when finalists from establishments all over the country will compete in front of well-known top poets to find the Poetry By Heart overall winners. There will be certificates, commendations and prizes along the way and the organisers hope that contestants at each level will “foster deep personal connections with the poems chosen and bring poetry alive for their friends, families and communities”.

Our involvement in the project kicked off last week with a special assembly during which two of our coolest teachers, Mr Hill and Mr Young, recited poems that meant a lot to them – in Mr Hill’s case the poem was Invictus by William Ernest Henley, and Mr Young’s the great Geordie ballad, the Lambton Worm. Preparations are now under way for the school final, when top reciters from each class will deliver their poems in front of a Year 8 audience and a panel of judges. After that it’s just a short step to stardom!