Sunday 22 April 2018

A visit from the poet Joseph Coelho

Last Thursday, we were all extremely excited to have our first visit from our new Patron of Reading, the poet and author Joseph Coelho. As our patron, Joseph will be visiting us again next year, and keeping us up to date with what he's doing by Skyping the school every half-term. He'll also be running some training for teachers and leading sessions for parents.

 

Miss Fuller collected Joseph from his hotel in Great Yarmouth and, when he arrived, he performed an excellent poetry show for the children in Key Stage Two. It was funny, but it also made us think about ways we can use language. He shared some one word poems with very long titles, taught us about different types of poetry and answered lots of questions from the children. He then spoke to some of the children about poems that they'd produced, which were based on his poem about hot dogs!

 

After break, he led a poetry workshop in Squirrels Class and, after enjoying a delicious roast dinner from the school kitchen, ran sessions with Hedgehogs Class and Rabbits Class. He shared a copy of his new book, Luna Loves Library Day, and talked to parents about the importance of reading at home.


He finished the day by selling and signing copies of his books. Miss Eyles then drove him back to Norwich station so that he could prepare for running the London Marathon on Sunday (which he managed to complete in just over five and a half hours- well done Joseph!).


We had a wonderful day with Joseph and can't wait until he visits us again in September. We'd like to say a big thank you to the Friends of Moorlands who worked extremely hard to raise the money to pay for Joseph's visit.


'That was brilliant, I didn't realise that poetry was so much fun.' Year 6 pupil
'He's really funny.' Year 1 pupil