Learning the necessary tools and gaining confidence to be able to articulate one’s journey, experiences, and world views are highly valued at the Girls’ School. This term, the Year 5 – 8 girls took part in an Action Education, Spoken Word workshop that helped them do exactly this.

During their visit, facilitators Ken and Talia took the girls through two workshops. The first workshop focused on understanding the Spoken Word genre, creating ideas for writing, building confidence around poetry speaking and writing, and collaboration when it came to wiring poems together. The second workshop focused on individual writing, where students had to plan and draft a Spoken Word piece and explore and identify performance elements.

This workshop was particularly useful as the students prepare for the Saint Kentigern Girls' Rehu Festival of Oral Language - where students have the option of entering into one of four streams. One of these is Spoken Word.

All the students felt positive about the workshop. They mentioned that they connected with the genre, felt it provided an opportunity to express their emotions and that it was relatable.

Here is what Year 8 student Milly MacLeod had to say about her experience: 

‘The Spoken Word Workshop allowed us to express our feelings and not just the happy feelings but the feelings that we bottle up inside and continue to keep in the back of our mind until it overflows. Spoken Word is more than just a poem; it is a way of speaking yet creating a visual effect that the audience can connect to. It allows people to go into the deeper meaning and connect to a part of themself they did not know they had.’

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