Pupils have been been honing their skills in performance poetry and public speaking. The English working group initiative at Richard Huish Trust schools Nerrols, North Town, North Curry, Lyngford Park and West Buckland gave the children experiences of real authors, poets and illustrators.

More than 500 pupils from the trust schools attended an event to hear the poet A. F. Harrold perform a selection of his work and offer top poetry tips over three workshops in the lecture theatre at Richard Huish College in Taunton. Each primary school then internally ran their own public speaking competition, ‘Look Who’s Talking!’. Pupils had to learn and perform from memory a poem by A. F. Harrold or a poem inspired by his work. They also had to deliver a four-minute presentation entitled ‘My World’ on a subject they are passionate about and then answer three questions linked to their presentation.

The schools then each selected two finalists – one Lower KS2 and one Upper KS2 – to represent their school at a finals evening at West Buckland Primary School earlier this month. Around 35 audience members and a judging panel consisting of Nick Arnold, head teacher at Lyngford Park Primary School), Polly Matthews, head teacher of Court Fields Secondary School, Hailey Thompson-Burrows, local author of When You Go To Sleep At Night, and head judge Sarah Cook, of the Somerset Literacy Network, gave their verdicts.

Steven Bate, Huish schools English lead, said: “The standard of the performances and presentations were very high as the children wowed the audience with their confident and expressive delivery. All of the children received medals and certificates, with the eventual winners being Betsy and Freya, both from West Buckland Primary School. Freya was crowned overall winner. As a lovely conclusion to this event, all of the finalists will have the opportunity to perform their poems once again to A. F. Harrold via Zoom link.”