National Poetry Day
POETRY PICNIC 2010
The annual Poetry Picnic to celebrate National Poetry Day was held in the library on Thursday 7th October at lunchtime. This year’s theme was ‘Home’.
Preparation started around two – three weeks in advance with notices being put up and staff being invited to submit their thoughts about ‘home’:
What does ‘Home’ mean to you?
– the place you live
– the place you come from
– the building you live in
– the sounds, smells, tastes of ‘home’
Please write a short poem or even just a couple of lines / sentences or words on the theme of ‘Home’.
Pupils, in their English classes were requested to consider the above question. 1M produced colourful poems as posters and 2z wrote down their thoughts on paper during classtime. The rest of S1 and S2 wrote down their thoughts on scrap paper during their library periods which were the collated and word processed for display.
The event was attended by 31 pupils, mostly library regulars. They enjoyed the snacks provided and fully took part in the poetry pairs game where they tried to match cards with a poem about an animal home and animals on them. Pupils were to turn a poem card over and read out the poem (or short extract), then try to find the matching animal picture card. This ran for the whole session with pupils dropping in and out at each lunchtime bell. Prizes (book) were given to pupils with the most pairs. All attendees will receive a certificate of attendance.
Pupil Librarians, Suzanne Williams, Melissa Cumming, Bernadette Charter and Robert Mathershaw helped out by taking a register, keeping and staff visitors topped up with tea or coffee and taking photos. Both Melissa and Suzanne were exceptional in their willingness to help out and as such have received a merit commendation, whilst the others received commendations.
This was a lovely event with pupils appearing to enjoy themselves. Now that it has been running for several years means that the format is well established and little preparation is needed other than advertising it to pupils and staff. The work mainly goes into the preparation of any associated class activities and selecting the resources to be used at the event.
Frances Sinclair
Librarian
1st November 2010
