A truly inspirational visitor, James Carter, the poet, worked with all Prep pupils during the course of today. His faithful friends, Keith (the guitar) and Steve (the melodica) were introduced to us during some entertaining assemblies in the morning and everyone thoroughly enjoyed participating in James’s rendering of a selection of his poems including ‘Hey, Little Bug’ and ‘I like Electric Guitars.’
Pupils in Prep I to Prep VI then took advantage of working more closely with James in a series of workshops tailored to their age and abilities for the remainder of the day. The fusion of imagination and rich vocabulary lead to the creation of some amazing poems which pupils shared with each other and parents at the end of the day.
The air was filled excitement, fun and laughter as the creative juices began to flow. In KS1 there was a collaboration to write a quirky animal poem to which they added actions. Years 3 and 4 worked on simple, but effective Kennings about animals ranging from sharks to magpies and jellyfish to snakes. Many pupils took the opportunity to experiment with alliteration and internal rhyme and kept us guessing until the end as their poems were written like riddles. Taking a more reflective approach, the Prep V and Prep VI pupils created some deeply moving and poignant poems based on the theme of ‘Boasts and Lies.’ Each one was unique in its approach to the subject matter and James Carter was particularly impressed at the standard of creativity and style produced within such a short time frame.
Parents, please ask your children to share their poems with you. You will be astounded by what they have produced. They proved today that they really are ‘Bards of Bridgewater.’
Read Prep V’s collective ‘Boasts and Lies’ here: Boasts and Lies by Prep V
(If anyone else would like a signed copy of a book by James Carter, the deadline for orders is the end of Wednesday October 17th)
