GCSE Poetry Live!

Before half-term, 26 GCSE English Literature students had an incredible experience as they attended the ‘GCSE Poetry Live!’ event at the Apollo New Victoria Theatre in London’s West End. This was a unique opportunity for students to explore some of their GCSE anthology poems with some of the poets themselves!

Poets in attendance reciting their works included Carol Anne Duffy, Imtiaz Dharker, Dhaljit Nagra, Owen Sheers and Liz Berry, as well as the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. Students particularly enjoyed John Agard, whose spirited performances really got the students on their feet! Each poet carefully explained their inspirations for their poems as well as answering student questions – this really helped deepen students’ knowledge of the texts which will no doubt benefit them for their final GCSE examination.

As well as all that, chief examiner Tony Childs led two superb sessions on how to tackle unseen poems, guiding students through how to answer these tough questions in the exam. It was great to see our students scribbling notes throughout, making sure that they absorbed all the key information. Well done to the boys for brilliant conduct during this inspiration and aspirational trip.