Congratulations to Year 8 Tom O, who has won a national poetry prize for his poem Searching in the Mysteries of Life category, in the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE) 2019 Spirited Arts & Poetry competition.

Now in its 17th year, the competition has attracted over 340,000 participants, with entries coming from as far afield as Hong Kong, Australia, Thailand and Bahrain. The annual competition starts at the beginning of every school year and runs through to 31 July, in order to enable teachers to incorporate the art competition into their Religious Education lessons. Many schools have an ‘Spirited Arts’ unit of work, or a special learning RE/arts week. Judging by RE Today Advisers and students takes place in August and winners are announced in the new academic year.

Commenting on his win, Lat Blaycock, Fiona Moss and the NATRE team said, “We estimate that a staggering 50,000 children and young people took part in our competitions this year, and we would like to thank them all, and their teachers, for the insight, hard work and spiritual thinking that went on. Winning one of the prizes is a great achievement!”

Mrs S Nurse, Head of Sexey’s Theology, Philosophy & Humanities Faculty said, “The NATRE Poetry competition is a great initiative, enabling students to think about spirituality creatively and apply it to their modern lives. I’ve been so impressed by all the entries and of course our special congratulations goes to Tom for his winning entry.”

Tom’s full poem can be read below and you can listen to guest judge Paul Cookson read his entry here.

Searching

There is a girl,
Searching,searching,
Looking for it,
The reason,
The meaning,
She searches far and wide
But always comes back empty-handed.
A teen by now,
She still searches,
She still seeks,
There!
Over there!
A boy.
Looking at her,
Watching her,
They start to talk.
A spark is born,
An energy,
A connection.
Late twenties now,
Still together,still happy,
She asks, he agrees.
An old woman in age,
She no longer searches,
She no longer seeks,
For she has found it,
Love.