PUPILS at Great Malvern Primary School have been enjoying all things poetic in their first-ever poetry festival.

The inaugural festival for the school lasted a week and was designed to celebrate National Poetry Day.

Children were immersed in poetry for the week and enjoyed a range of activities including outdoor poetry, writing their own poetry and working with visiting poet Jean Atkin, who has been announced as the poet of the Malvern Hills AONB.

The festival was inspired by the book The Lost Words, which was bought for every class in the school by Cllr Caroline Bovey who allocated some of her ward budget to the project.

Cllr Bovey said: "This is such an important book of poetry. We live in the glorious Malvern Hills and yet many of the young people in our area do not have the basic vocabulary to describe the nature they see around them.

"The Lost Words goes some way to addressing this issue and I wanted the children in the Pickersleigh ward to have access to this beautiful and inspiring work. I visited Great Malvern Primary during their festival and the learning I saw was amazing. Well done to all involved.”

Head Nikki Selby said: "I want to say a massive thank-you to Cllr Bovey and Malvern Hills District Council for making this funding available to our school and giving our children the opportunity to experience all forms of poetry.

"Our children have had a superb week learning about, writing and performing poems inspired by The Lost Words, a fantastic book which cannot fail to inspire.”

The festival culminated in a school-wide poetry slam where children performed both their own and others’ poems to a large audience.

Lucy Innes, aged 10, one of those who performed at the poetry slam said afterwards:

“That was exciting. I felt like the words were coming alive as I spoke them. Performing poems isn’t something I normally do in my spare time but I am definitely going to do it again.”