SG World's National Schools Poetry Competition
Pure poetry as the winners were determined at SG World's National Poetry Grand Final.
Read the Finalists Poems
See the Pictures from the Final
To mark National Poetry Day, SG World held the final of its national poetry competition in Birmingham on Wednesday 6th October.
The final held at the Corus hotel in Birmingham saw 9 finalists in 3 age categories recite their poems to the assembled audience of peers.
The competition was run in support of the children’s mobility charity Whizz-Kidz who many people will have heard of through the current Blue Peter Go Cardz appeal. Over £2000 was raised for Whizz-Kidz and Kay Aslett, one of the poetry judges and Whizz Kidz representative said “It’s fantastic to see this kind of response. The quality of the poetry was excellent and to do it for such a worthwhile cause we are incredibly grateful.”
The rest of the judging panel was made up of Terry Fox, poet Laureate for Cheshire, and Rameeza Mehmud, student of Terry’s and a published poet herself.
In his open words Terry stated the importance of creative writing in schools and gave an inspiring speech to the children.
One of the youngest finalists Sally Hurst from Bolton was first to recite and set the standard for the day. All finalists won a Nintendo DS games console and each category winner also received an annual pass to the Merlin group of attractions and £1000 for their school.
The finalists were:
Years 1-3 (1&2 in Scotland)
Bradley Clowery-Atherley (Winner) - St Margaret Clitherow Catholic Primary
Sally Hurst - St Thomas School
William Bright - St Thomas School
Years 4-6 (3-6 in Scotland)
Owen Bennet (Winner) - Springfield Primary
Ellen Morgan - Abbey Road Primary
Sarah Redman - Our Lady's RC Primary
Years 7-11 (Secondary 1-4 in Scotland)
Isobel Cavan (Winner) - Bishop Rawstone
Callum Adamson - Hall Green
Preeya Lakhani - Redland High for Girls
One of the teachers in the audience said “The event was run so smoothly and all the poems were of such a high standard and it was great to see the children reading them so well. I was also impressed by the feedback given by the judges and thought the awards ceremony was very well done.”
Jamie Norman of SG World said “the response to the competition was fantastic. We supply over 5,000 schools throughout the country with our products but it’s also great to be able to give something back not only to the schools but to such a worthwhile cause as our nominated charity. After this years success we look forward to next years competition.”
Read the Finalists Poems
View the Pictures from the Grand Final
We hope that by running this competition, all who took part were able to think a little about their perfect day, and it's highlighted the amazing work that Whizz Kidz do every day helping thousands of children achieve their potential.
We would like to thank all our poetry competition entrants for their hard work. We had over 500 pupils enter making it a tough decision for the Poet Laureate of Cheshire.
About the National School Poetry Competition
A great exercise to get your children thinking about what might happen during their perfect day with fantastic prizes on offer. Get your children writing today!
How you organise your schools entries is entirely up to you. It could form part of a classroom activity or simply a homework project.
How many poems can my school enter?
Your school can enter as many poems as you like per group. Each poem should consist of up to 16 lines and be entitled “My Perfect Day”.
The competition is divided into 3 groups according to academic year:
How are the winners chosen?
The poems will be judged by a panel of independent judges, who will choose 3 finalists from each year group category.
All 9 finalists will then be invited to a live final and will be given the opportunity to recite their poems for the judges so they can choose a final winner in each category.
Each finalist will win a Nintendo DSi, and the overall winner from each age category will also win a 12 month family Merlin pass to a variety of theme parks in the UK. The 3 winning pupils' schools will each get £1000 and a years supply of SG World's Incident Reporting system.
How do I enter?
This competition is run in support of children's mobility charity Whizz-Kidz and we are asking that all schools make a one-off donation of £5 to enter the competition. All entry fees will be donated directly to the charity – thank you for your support!
1. Once you have chosen your entries, They need to be supplied as Word documents using the template you can download from here.
Download Poetry layout template.
You need to email your entries to competition@sgworld.com
You then need to simply complete the online entry form here.
2. Now all you have to do is make your £5 entry fee donation. To do this, please visit:www.justgiving.com/SGWorld. Alternatively you can post a £5 note or a cheque for £5 made payable to 'Whizz-Kidz' Competition, SG World Ltd, Duchy Road, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 6ND.
For full terms and conditions click here.
Closing date for entries is the End of the Summer Term. So enter today!
With schools finishing for the Summer holidays on different days we have not specified an end date just the End of Summer Term so get your entries in before finishing for summer. The entries will be judged during the summer break and announced at the beginning of the next academic year.
We are also planning to publish every poem on a dedicated website to make sure that everyone's poems can be seen so please enter today and make your donation to Whizz-Kidz!