Students from Year 6 through to Year 13 spent time with performance poet, Dreadlock Alien, Mr Richard Grant, who visited the Academy last Thursday to help celebrate National Poetry Day.
The poet started the day by performing his poem ‘Well done’ to an audience of Year 6 & 7 students and engaged them in some beat-boxing.
He also ran a number of workshops during the day with smaller groups of students from Years 8 and 9. In these groups he helped the students with their creative writing skills as well as giving them advice on their delivery of their poems.
He spent time with a Year 13 media group discussing about the media in general and how social media has had an impact on his career.
He ended his visit by meeting with Year 11 drama students to talk about his style of performance and how to perform with confidence.
Mr Richard Grant said: “I have had a great day at the school and I hope I have inspired the students. My aim on days like this is to change the students' perspective on poetry. I start off with about 99 per cent of students thinking poetry is boring and I set out to change their minds on this. I come along to sprinkle them with inspiration and get them to enjoy the use of language.”
He added he was very impressed by the Academy and the students’ attitudes towards learning, he said: “The Academy is definitely a good school to work at with a lot of positive reinforcement being shown by staff to the students.”