Yesterday, our English faculty and support staff took 120 Redhill GCSE English students to GCSE Poetry Live! at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham.

GCSE Poetry Live offers our students the unique opportunity to hear some of the best poets from around the world perform readings of their work, including poems we are currently studying.

Alongside the spellbinding performances were two 'examiner sessions' where highly experienced Chief Examiners helped students to explore two skills vital for success in the GCSE English Literature examinations.

• Session One: How students might deal with unseen poems in the exam, both how to think about them and how to write for the best possible results.
• Session Two: Comparing poems, whether they are studied poems or unseen, and how to write most effectively in either situation.

Thanks to all the students who attended – you were brilliant!

Poetry Live! Poets 2024:

	Simon Armitage
	Born in Marsden, West Yorkshire, he worked as a probation officer for six years before focusing on poetry. His poetry is influenced by the work of Ted Hughes, W.H. Auden, and Philip Larkin. He spent time in between readings answering questions and talking about what inspired his love of poetry, how he developed his poetic style and why certain subjects compelled him to explore them.
	Carol Ann Duffy
	An award-winning Scottish poet and one of the most read, studied and loved of today’s poets. Her poetry engages topics such as gender and oppression, expressing them in familiar, conversational language. She served as the first woman poet laureate between 2009-2019.
	Imtiaz Dharker
	Born in Pakistan and brought up in Scotland, Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and documentary filmmaker who divides her time between London and India. This mixed heritage and itinerant lifestyle is at the heart of her writing: questioning, imagistic and richly textured poems that span geographical and cultural displacement, conflict and gender politics, while also interrogating received ideas about home, freedom and faith.
	Daljit Nagra
	Daljit Nagra was born into a working-class, Sikh family in London. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, on the Council of the Society of Authors, Advisor to Poetry By Heart, and presents the weekly Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra. His collections have won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and Best First Book, the South Bank Show Decibel Award and the Cholmondeley Award.
	John Agard
	Born in Guyana in the Caribbean, he moved to Britain in the 1970s and has written lots about what it was like to leave home and the history of the Caribbean. He is one of the most exciting, energetic and spellbinding readers, breathing passion and energy into each of his poems when he speaks them aloud. He spent time talking to students about the origins of each poem, combining historical awareness, cultural insight and humour.