Year 11 Trip to GCSE Poetry Live

30th January 2026

Well done to our Year 11 students who engaged so well on our trip to Symphony Hall in Birmingham for the GCSE Poetry Live event last Monday! The students were enthusiastic throughout, reflecting maturely on the poems and offering some really insightful responses and discussion.   

A big well done to Mandy from Year 11, who was brave enough to ask Imtiaz Dharker an insightful question about the subject matter of her powerful poem ‘A Century Later‘ in front of the whole venue.  This reflected her careful consideration of the ideas presented and the poet’s intentions.  

We were lucky enough to hear from local poet Liz Berry, whose poem ‘Homing’ champions the Black Country accent and our local history and reminds us all to celebrate where we come from! The students were also really inspired by the amazing final performance from legendary poet John Agard whose poem 'Checkin out me History' is a firm favourite in lessons and encourages us all to reflect on what we value in our shared histories and how our identities are shaped by what we learn. It was wonderful to see them enjoying live poetry and reflecting so thoughtfully on their studied texts as well as the wider value of poetry reading and writing.  We hope this experience will support their GCSE revision and continue to inspire them as readers and writers.

Thank you to all the students who attended and to Mrs Taylor, Mr Bucknor, Miss Rauf and Ms Somra for supporting this opportunity!

Miss Grace

Some of the students have provided the following reviews of the day:

“Poetry live is an experience that every student should experience. The poets talking about and answering questions for their poem develops students understanding about poems that are in their GSCE’s. An invaluable resource.” - Alisdair

“Poetry live was a really exciting and helpful trip especially for the upcoming mocks and exams, getting to hear poems live can really surface many new interpretations and ideas, and also hearing the poets speak about there inspiration and reason for writing their poems gives young people like me a really good insight to the poetry industry and inspires many kids to get involved.” - Charlotte