Posted on: May 5th 2017

Rotary Poetry 2017

On an April afternoon, students together with their families, teachers and school representatives met in the historic Chichester Assembly Rooms for a very special event. This event marked a culmination of all the hard work generated by the pupils who won 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd prizes for the Rotary Poetry Competition.

This is a competition open to pupils who live or are schooled in the West Sussex area, run in association with Waterstone’s Booksellers. As a secondary school, Chichester High School could only enter for the 8-11 and 12-15 age groups which makes it all the more pleasurable to secure seven out of the eleven prizes available.

For the third year, David Swann (lecturer in English at Chichester University) both judged and announced the prize-winners. He had the unenviable task of perusing a significant amount of entries this year – the record number of entries in the competition’s 6-year history.

Rotary Poetry 2017 (84)

We are delighted to announce that students from CHS won 3 out of the four prizes available in the 8 – 11 category!

Our winning poem, entitled ‘Fire and Ice’ was written by Poppy Hawkins (Year 7) and was confidently read by her at the ceremony. Jazmin Brewin and Jamel Jallow (Year 7) gained joint-3^rd prizes with a pupil from Oakwood picking up 2^nd prize.

In the 12 – 15 age category, 1^st prize went to Madison Egington (Year 7) for her poem ‘Siberian Wolf’, 2^nd prize went to Alfie Maidment (Year 8) for his poem called, ‘Tiger’ and joint third went to Riley Thomas (Year 7) for a poem called, ‘Caribbean Angler Fish’. He shared the prized with a student from Bishop Luffa.

There were some extra prizes this year, and yes, we won one of those too! Congratulations to Kieran Jones (Year 7) who won a special prize for the
overall funniest poem called, ‘Bear-ism’

The prizes were presented by The Right Worshipful Mayor of Chichester, Councillor Peter Budge. It’s always a pleasure to see Chichester Town Crier, Mr Richard Plowman at this event announcing the order of play too, although not in his Town Crier uniform this year!

Rotary Poetry 2017 (95)

We eagerly await the announcement of next year’s poetry theme. Chichester High School will be ready and waiting!

Many thanks to Mr Old for supporting the students and running the Poetry Club at CHS. Mr Old would like to thank Miss Morris for supporting the prize winners in his absence on the presentation day.

All the winning poems can be found here.

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