WHEN GCSE results were released in August 2012, a huge sigh of relief resounded around the walls of Wolverley, particularly from the English department. Following the national furore regarding last minute grade boundary changes, English staff feared the worst. Fortunately, the overall A* to C results of 63 per cent was good, showing an increase of 23 per cent on the results of 2011. However, it wasn’t until much later in the year, when final national statistics were available, that staff realised how much the hard work had paid off.

There is a national expectation of how much progress a student should make from the end of Key Stage Two (year six) to the end of Key Stage Four (year 11), irrespective of the student’s ability.

At Wolverley, the number of students who made the expected progress in English was nine per cent above the national level. This puts the school in the top 20 per cent of similar schools and the top 40 per cent of all schools – a remarkable achievement. “I am absolutely delighted,” said Mrs Grantham, head of English. “Both staff and students worked extremely hard to achieve this: they deserve to feel very proud of these results, as I do.”

To celebrate World Poetry Day this year, Mrs Grantham came up with the bright idea of a Poetry Flash Mob and so, after a few days of coaching by Miss Winston, students and staff dining in the Hub at lunchtime were somewhat taken aback when Sam Hunt leapt onto a table and declaimed the first two lines of a poem. He was swiftly followed by Amy Harper in a different part of the Hub who, in ringing tones, recited the next two lines. The diners hardly had time to gasp in amazement when Sam Topham jumped on to a table in a different corner and carried on with the poem.

By the time the students had grasped what was going on, Mr Round was standing proudly on top of his table, bringing the poem to a conclusion. The poetry reciters sat down to warm applause and much admiring laughter. “It was a brilliant idea,” said Kitty Morgan, “and certainly livened up our lunchtime!”

Following the success of last year’s Poetry Slam the English department organised another Slam this year, for our year nines. Our presenter was Matt Windle, who is Birmingham’s Poet Laureate and also one of the judges at last year’s Poetry Slam final in Bromsgrove.

Matt proved just as popular as Spoz had been last year, kicking off the proceedings by reciting an hilarious poem about his own experience of school.

Just 15 minutes into the event, all the students were enthusiastically competing with each other to see who could find the most rhyming words. Shortly after that, each group was building up a ‘bank’ of words they could use when crafting their own poems. Matt gave them a choice of topics and the groups worked hard to create poems based either on bullying, racism or celebrating difference and individuality. Towards the end of the allotted time, each group ‘performed’ their poem to the whole room and the teachers present marked them on the effectiveness of their language choices and their presentation. There was a winning group from each of the two sessions: the overall winners were “Po-8-Ry”, consisting of James Perks, Rachel Kellerman, Michael Allen, Mike Stanton, Jacob Hare, Harry Adams, Ricardo Jones and Rob O’Brian.

Unfortunately, we were unable to get to the Poetry Slam Final this year as we ran out of time! Although we had booked Spoz in February, he had muddled his bookings which meant we couldn’t hold our own Slam event until June 25, giving us no time to prepare and rehearse the presentation of the poem – especially as most of the winning group were busy during Personal Challenge Week.

Spoz has given us his solemn promise that he will fit us in first next year – so watch out for the announcement in next year’s Wolverley Whispers that our students have been crowned Poets Laureate of Worcestershire!