A Celebration of Writing across Inspiration Trust: English Olympiad Literary Festival

On Friday 17th March, pupils attended Jane Austen College for the English Olympiad Literary Festival. This Inspiration Trust event included poetry, debates, the book shadowing initiative and speeches as part of the competition.

The day started with a poetry competition. Pupils performed their original poems in front of the audience, whilst others awaited their turn to perform. There were also performances of existing poems, with more than twenty pupils taking part in the performances. The atmosphere was really supportive and it was lovely to see the students encouraging each other to perform. 

Richard Patterson, Subject Specialist Lead for English at Inspiration Trust said:

“It was fantastic to be able to put on this event again for our pupils. Giving them the opportunity to perform and show their passion for the subject was an amazing thing to see. We are proud of all our students; for their love of the written word and the music of our language”

Prizes were then awarded to winners of the book shadowing competition - an annual reading initiative that sees schools engage with a select group of texts. These texts are read, discussed and celebrated as part of our Olympiad. This initiative took place throughout all of our academies and the awards went to the pupils who had engaged most with the initiative, celebrating the time and effort they had put in. 

After a short break, our pupils went on to participate in the team debate competition. Some of our academies entered teams to debate various topics including, “English is the most important subject” and “Should books be rewritten?”, these were revealed to pupils just before their debates. Including passionate arguments and steadfast rebuttals, this was an intense competition. The overall winners were decided by a panel of judges, choosing the most confident and persuasive teams. Winning teams in their debates were King Edward VII, Cromer Academy and East Point Academy; with East Point Academy crowned as the overall winner.

Louise Jackson, Secondary Director at Inspiration Trust, who was also one of the judges for the debate competition said:

“This Literary Olympiad reflects our recognition as a Trust of the critical  importance of reading, and the power of language to enable pupils to access texts, consider differing perspectives, express themselves and develop their own opinions on challenging topics. As an English teacher myself, I was proud to be part of this event and I know it will go on to be a Trust tradition. Pupils gave thought-provoking and persuasive arguments in their debating teams; congratulations to East Point Academy as the overall debate winners.”

Lastly, the final competition saw pupils submitting a recorded speech to the panel of judges. These were sorted ahead of time and a small group were selected to perform their speeches on the day to our audience, from which a winner was selected. The theme of the speech was “We can change the world”, with all of the speakers showing passion and determination. Some topics of speeches included “Climate Change”, “Beauty Standards” and “Role Models” with each speaker finding a different way to explore the overall theme.

This successful day highlighted the importance of celebrating English and literature across Inspiration Trust and concluded at St George Colegate, just opposite Jane Austen College, where final winners in all categories were announced.