In English lessons, we devoted some time to a huge range of poetry, discussing whether there's such a thing as a 'bad' poem, enjoying ones that might fit in that bracket(!), we wrote our own deliberately bad poems, and enjoyed reading ones about cats sitting on computers and poems made up solely of compound words. The theme this year was 'Play' and below is Mr Darlow's efforts, brilliantly brought to life by the boys in Year 5 and Year 6!

'Play'

You may or may not remember last year,
When I wrote of a time when we all lived in fear,
When safety was lacking for teachers at school,
The danger we faced on the Grid was not cool.
Mrs Brill scored a header, the teachers we won,
But that is old news, a new theme’s begun.
So this year, for national poetry day,
The theme that’s been chosen, by chance, is just ‘play.’
There’s horse play and soft play and play time and play ground,
There’s play date and playdough and word play and play around!
To play here at Pilgrims’ has multiple meanings,
It’s pit pat off walls, bouncing balls of the ceilings.
It’s playing Grid football, it’s the Senior Play,
But Senior’s now Upper, so that’s what we’ll say.
You play with your friends, perhaps you play snooker?
You play and you beat your best friend called Luca,
You sometimes play manhunt which sounds really scary,
You hide behind corners with eyes that are wary,
You play in the bush, you play all the time,
You play like you must, and that is just fine!
You play on the Grid like it’s life’s greatest thing,
You play against Twyford, perhaps on the wing,
Or you play CDM, or you play online games,
You play Clash Royale with your best friend called James,
You play when you shouldn’t which sometimes goes badly,
And have conversations that sometimes end sadly!
But playing is crucial in all that you do,
I hope you’re still playing when you’re 42,
Happy old national poetry day,
Be good and be great, you may go on your way.

Will Darlow
Head of English