Quarry Mount Primary School, January 2025 - Return to Narnia
It was a morning of
celebration at Quarry Mount Primary School this Wednesday when Year Five, who
had been working with local poet and published writer James Nash, had the
chance to share their work in an assembly with Years 4 and 6, and with their
parents. Quite daunting when you're only nine or ten years old.
They had spent the week finding their poetic voices. The starting point of the class reading-book - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – explores four children as they enter the new world of Narnia. Year 5 imagined their own journey into a new world. Some of their writing had a science-fiction feel to it, others a more humorous approach. Two poems strikingly had football at their heart, and expressed the footballing dreams and ambitions of their writers.
Mrs Yaqub, the class teacher, and Mrs. Gough, the teaching assistant, were a great support in the poetic endeavours of the children, giving them time outside the creative sessions to write neat, final drafts that will appear in a classroom book of their poems.
The assembly itself was the climax of three mornings of work. Parents were very impressed by the range of language used by the young people, with one saying how the sessions with James in school had motivated her son to write at home. One boy had apparently never written anything like it before but would certainly be trying his hand at poetry again. Result!
‘ I jumped into a volcano
Lava was bubbling inside
I would not regret this
It’s the best
choice of my life’.
James with teacher Mrs Yaqub
Several parents commented that they hoped that James would come into school again and echoed Rebecca Pettman, the headteacher, when she said,
‘Our children had a great time creating poetry with James. It is wonderful to see how enthusiastic they are to create their poems and use such a rich range of vocabulary in their writing’.
Every poem produced was original and expressed something individual from the imagination of each of the young poets.
‘I could feel the wind,
The air tasted nasty, bitter’
And
‘My quest was to defeat the monster’.
The final words should come from Mrs.Yaqub, who said of James,
‘I’d like to thank him for continuing to come and work with our fantastic children. They learnt so much and he opened them up to their creative selves’.
This project has several aims: to work with an established poet who introduces various forms of poetry and how you start writing it; to allow youngsters to craft their own original work; to perform their own poems to a large audience. These are unforgettable experiences that can change young minds, develop self-confidence and sometimes break down internal barriers to success.
Headingley LitFest is very grateful once again for support for this project from the Area Management Committee of Leeds City Council and the local councillors who allocate the grant.
