On Monday 27th February 50 pupils from Years 9,10 and 11 attended GCSE Poetry Live at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to hear inspiring performances from some of the poets from the GCSE course.
We travelled to the prestigious Bridgewater Hall and enjoyed a day filled with poetry from some of the leading contemporary poets; Simon Armitage, Imtiaz Dharker, Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy, and John Agard. Each poet performed a range of different poems, both from the GCSE anthology and from other bodies of work, and talked about the topics they covered in their words. As poetry is a spoken art form, pupils were able to express the poet’s work in the way it was fully intended. As a result, pupils gained a more in depth understanding of the poems and poets they will write about in their GCSE’s.
Year 11 pupil, Harry Pickup shared, ‘This event helped me gain a good insight into the reasons why poets made their choices. I learnt and experienced the themes in a different way when hearing them perform it.’
After each poet had recited their work, the audience had the chance to ask the poets questions about their poems, which offered our pupils further insight. Pupils also benefitted from a masterclass exploring how to approach unseen poetry by Chief Principal Examiner, Tony Childs.
English Teacher, Mrs Addison shared, ‘It was an immense privilege and honour to attend such a fantastic event and provide an opportunity for pupils to benefit from the value of hearing poetry and experiencing the words they read in their anthologies coming alive on the amazing stage at Bridgewater Hall.’
