Recently, the Rotary Club hosted a writing competition asking for poems or short stories with the title ‘Environment’ and, true to form, our Fyling Hallers stepped forward to take part.
There were several age categories in which we could enter and I was absolutely thrilled with the quality of the work ranging from year 7 to year 11. We also had some excellent submissions from the prep school which have already been written about by Miss Vincent-Jones. And from our list of submissions, I am delighted to be able to report a swathe of fantastic results.
In the 11-13 category, Tallulah, Izzy, and Faith all received ‘Highly Commended’ and were given individual feedback from the judges including:
‘A nicely written poem that speaks of the darkness caused by pollution.’ (Faith)
‘I like the way this entry allocated a specific character to witness each “disaster’ (Izzy)
‘This story made me smile.’ (Tallulah).
Following on from that, Skye, in the same category, won joint second prize with her amazing short story and was told that her story was, ‘Well-structured and flowed well, imaginative and rather than simply cataloguing a lot of facts and figures, bringing a personal touch to a bleak look at what the future could be. A mature and competent piece of work.’
In the 14-17 category, Georgina won 1st place for her poem about which the judges commented:
‘I am sure that many of your readers would agree that ‘The pursuit of happiness is complicated’, as we sometimes crave for the changes that, ultimately, hurt us, spiritually if not physically. You lay these sentiments bare in your poem and encourage us to think of ‘environment’ as meaning something personal and profound. Thank you for sharing your poem with us.’
Having won 1st place, Georgina was then put through to the Regional finals where she was up against the best young writers and poets in the whole region and I am delighted to be able to report that she again secured 1st place and so has been entered into the National Poetry Finals which will take place towards the end of this month.
I will report back as soon as we have any news. What a Masterclass by our Rotary Writers!
Chris Thomas, Head of English