Our Year 11 learners attended GCSE Poetry Live at the Dominion Theatre to hear inspiring performances from some of the poets from the GCSE course.  

We travelled down to the prestigious Dominion Theatre and enjoyed a day filled with poetry from some of the leading contemporary poets; Simon Armitage, Imtiaz Dharker, Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard and Grace Nichols. Each poet performed a range of different poems, both from the GCSE anthology and from other bodies of work, and talked about the topics they covered in their words. As poetry is a spoken art form, learners were able to express the poet’s work in the way it was fully intended. As a result, learners gained a more in depth understanding of the poems and poets they will write about in their GCSE’s.  

Year 11 learner Joden shared, ‘This event helped me gain a good insight into the reasons why poets made their choices- I learnt and experienced the themes in a different way when hearing them perform it. I especially liked Grace Nichols and John Agard- I felt their words really resonated with me because we share the same Guyanese heritage. ‘ 

After each poet head recited their work, the audience had the chance to ask the poets questions about their poems, which offered our learners further insight. Learners also benefitted from a masterclass exploring how to approach unseen poetry by examiner Tony Childs.  

English teacher Aminul shared, ‘It was an immense privilege to provide an opportunity for learners to benefit from the value of hearing poetry and experiencing the words they read in their anthologies coming alive on the amazing Dominion Theatre stage!’