John Cole Poetry Competition
On Wednesday 15th February the fourth John Cole Poetry competition took place in our school hall. This year the competition was hosted by the Reverend Hywel Snook and the judges were: Neil Bentley, Gillian Speed and Catherine Westwood.
Ten children had bravely learnt a poem of their own choice and the nominated poem ‘Nothing to Fear’. Each child took it turns to stand up and recite the two poems while the rest of the school appreciatively listened to their performances and the judges appraised their effectiveness.
It was a very hard decision for the judges but eventually, after much consideration, they chose a winner from Year 5, Thomas. John Cole, the instigator of the competition then congratulated all the children for participating and presented Tom with a voucher, a signed copy of the Magna Carter, by the author David Starkey and the John Cole trophy.
The school would like to say a big thank you to all the children who performed so brilliantly; the judges for making such a tough decision due to the quality of the entries; the Reverend Hywel Snook for compering so eloquently; John Cole for inventing the competition and finally to Mrs Green, Assistant head, for organising the whole event. Everyone really enjoyed the final thanks to the smooth organisation of the event.
This year for the first time, the school decided to award a prize to the children with the most improved handwriting too. This originally arose from an initiative by John Cole as well. All the children participated by copying out a poem; this was then judged and four winners were selected – one from each year group. Mr Hayward, our head teacher, had the difficult job of selecting the winners from the entries he was given. Finally, the following children were deemed to have made the most progress: Year 3 – Kasper; Year 4 – Hollie; Year 5 – Shane and Year 6 – Daniel.
Congratulations to these children for their hard work.
Each child was awarded a handwriting pen as a memento of the occasion. Thanks must go again to John Cole for inventing the competition; Mr Hayward for making the tough decisions and Mrs Green for organising this part of the competition so effectively as well.