As part of the Ilkley Literature Festival’s programme, Leeds based poet, Andy Craven-Griffiths, visited The Farnley Academy on Tuesday 19th March to lead a poetry performance workshop with 60 students from Years 8-10. The students worked together in the morning in groups of mixed year groups to create a collective poem and then practised team performances.
These were delivered in front of TFA’s House Leader, Ms Owen, and the Festival Education Outreach Officer, Ms Smith. Judging the five winning teams from the twelve performances was very tough as students gave honest, raw and well-honed deliveries of poems full of beautiful imagery. The winning five teams then went on to compete against each other in the afternoon.
The two teams to reach the final were comprised of Aaliyah, Avril and Leah with their poem entitled “Perfection is an Obsession” and Daisy , Kayleigh, Kacper and Iqra with their poem called “Brothers”.
Students took away new friends and memories from the day, alongside significantly building their confidence and writing skills. Our two winning teams will now go on to a full day’s workshop to compete against other schools in the region later in May. Go TFA!