BDAT’s Young People Share Their Voices Through Poetry

Pupils within the BDAT schools competed in a poetry competition on the subjects of their hopes, dreams and aspirations

In the Summer Term of 2024 Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust (BDAT) launched a Poetry Competition open to all pupils across their family of schools. The pupils were encouraged to enter a poem to demonstrate their unique ambitions and individual dreams for the future. Pupils in both in the primary and secondary phases of BDAT schools took part, with the poets’ ages ranging from five to 18.

The competition was linked to ‘Aspiration’ - a core BDAT value within the ‘ICARE’ values of; Inclusion, Compassion, Aspiration, Resilience and Excellence. Pupils’ from 10 different BDAT schools composed thought provoking poems which included:

Reducing pollution, making the world a better place.

Desires to be happy, kind and succeed in employment.

Acrostic poetry, whereby the lines are arranged so the first letter in each line helps to spell out a word.

An appetite to increase their courage and confidence.

Headteacher Anne Proctor from East Morton CE Primary School, with Jonathan Kennedy Assistant Headteacher from Belle Vue Girls’ Academy led the schools and pupils in the competition and ultimately made the difficult decisions to award the winners and runners up who were awarded with certificates.

Anne Proctor, Headteacher East Morton CE Primary School Our pupils particularly embraced the subject of ‘Aspiration’ and produced some marvellous poetry for the BDAT Poetry Competition. They worked hard to produce entries whilst we as school leaders appreciated the links to promoting writing. I would very much like to run something similar next summer linked to photography to find out what images the children will capture.

BDAT is a forward-thinking, professional learning community that is dedicated to the development of excellence in learning, both for our pupils and for the adults who serve and teach them.

The Trust hopes to run a similar competition next year using photography as the focus to continue the themes within the ICARE values, based on ‘Resilience’.

Some of the BDAT Poetry Champions were:

Dolly Rose in Year 2 at St John’s CE Primary School

Umaymah in Year 6 at St Philip’s CE Primary School

Mariyah in Year 7 at Belle Vue Girls’ Academy