National Poetry Day is an annual celebration on the first Thursday of October that encourages everyone to make, experience and share poetry with family and friends. Each year St John’s pupils and staff come together to mark this day because we believe exploring topics through vehicle of poetry helps to broaden perspectives, see things from a different point of view and encourage empathy and compassion. This year the theme was ‘Refuge’ and many children wrote their own poems based on this, including poems written in French and collum lune poems (5, then 3, then 5 words), amongst other types of poetry.
To mark the day we were joined by poet Paul Lyalls. Paul read out his popular poems ‘Heaven’ and ‘Sausages’ in Assemblies at both Byron House and Senior House which involved (very willing) crowd participation by children and staff alike. The poet also ran a series of workshops to guide the children through the process of writing their own poetry.
Paul has worked and performed with Michael Rosen, Kae Tempest, and Rastamouse to name a few. He was also poet in residence for the Roald Dahl Museum in 2013/14, one of the London 2012 Olympic ‘Shake the Dust Poets’, and has written poetry for NASA, Arsenal F.C., and has giant poetry displays in St Pancras Station.
The day’s celebrations also included every Byron House class performing a well-known poem ‘in the round’ during the Assembly, including: Zim Zam Zoom by James Carter (Kindergarten), On the Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan (Years 1 and 4), Say how you feel by Joseph Coelho (Year 2), I opened a book by Julia Donaldson (Year 3), I’m walking with my iguana by Brian Moses and Wind on the Hill by AA Milne (both Year 4).
At St John’s we encourage our children to develop a love of reading, writing and language with events like this, and each year publish an anthology of their poetry.
