Review of the Y9 Enrichment Day on Wed 30th June: Written by Jasmine Withers
With special thanks to Mr Zacharias for organising such an incredible day, today was a very educational, exciting and well planned experience that I thoroughly enjoyed along with my peers, We started off the day with an amazing session with a mindfulness teacher, ex – RAF soldier and poet, Darren . He taught us all about poems and confidence when we are performing poems, and even performed a couple of his own written pieces himself, which were all fantastic and a great joy to listen too. He also practised mindfulness with us, which was very relaxing and calming, and something we all need in these busy and frantic times we live in! He encouraged us to practise mindfulness when ever we can, as a way of de-stressing our lives. We all immensely enjoyed the interactive part of the talk too. Our next task was to write a poem of our own, or in groups. He also encouraged us to use props and acting to make our performances more visually enjoying, and we were told that we would perform these poems to the whole year later in the day. We split into form groups and went with a teacher to start composing. We were given pictures as inspiration for our poems, and I decided to do a poem about fire. Next, we went Into different rooms to start practising how we were going to act out our poems. This was great fun, and much helped by the amazing array of props Darren brought in for us there were musical instruments, colourful scarfs, fancy top hats, walking sticks and more besides. They most certainly enhanced our performances, and gave us some amusement too. Then we got the chance to perform to our group and Darren. This was a really good and considerate idea, as it got people used to standing up and performing and getting confident before they performed it to the whole year.
After that, we felt pretty confident about our poems and keen to do something different. Cue yoga! The mats were laid out in the hall, and the sight of them just brought a sense of peace to you already. The yoga instructor was extremely experienced and an excellent teacher. She gave us many useful techniques to help us with anxiety and stress , which we all feel at some point in the day. We all took something useful away with us, which will no doubt help us later in our lives. Before lunch, we had a singing lesson by a West End actor, dancer and singer. We played a fun game at the start to help put us at ease and then started learning the first verse and chorus of the song ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams – although it might seem cheesy, we all really enjoyed it and our voices soared high. I reckon the whole school could hear us! After lunch, we all gathered in the Ancaster Studio again. Starting off the poem reading was an excellent poem about women, written and read by Mr McCormick. As a feminist myself, I really enjoyed the feminism element to the poem, and it certainly stirred me to action. Then I read my poem, which was exhilarating and nerve wracking and so exciting at all the same time. We listened to so many extraordinary poems and performances, which made us laugh, cry and laugh some more. Everyone was so brave getting up there, and it was so inspirational hearing all the poems people had invented, using their own brilliant minds.
Overall, it was such a well rounded and educational day, and I enjoyed it immensely. We all learnt so much, from poetry to performances to stress techniques to singing. Darren, who came in especially for us, was enlightening, funny snd so enjoyable to listen to. The day was certainly enriching, and we all thank the English department so much for putting together such a unbelievable and memorable day.