Farewell To St Antony's Year 2 class! Special Poem

This term I have been working every Friday morning with Year 2 at St Antony's School, Newham. I've been sharing my poems with them and using poetry to help develop their literacy skills (and, I hope, their confidence and enthusiasm for literacy). This Friday will be my final session with them. I hope I don't sound too mawkish or saccharine when I say that I will genuinely miss them.

Working on this project has given me the opportunity to write some bespoke poems. Here is my final one, dedicated to Year 2. (Warning: contains a couple of 'in jokes', especially in the penultimate stanza.)

Goodbye Poem For Year 2

Farewell, then, to St Antonys

We’ve had a lovely time,

With onomatopoeia, metaphor,

Rhythm and rhyme

And repetition, repetition,

Repetition too –

I hope I've helped you realise

The things that you can do.

In eight short weeks we all have seen

The joy that words can bring,

And every single one of you

Has done amazing things

And everybody tried their hardest –

Every single one.

The work was sometimes difficult

But mostly it was fun.

We’ve shouted LHASA (APSO!)

And we’ve screamed OOSHUS (MAGOOSHUS!),

Our time together went so fast

It’s like it blew straight threw us

And I will really miss you

Fridays will not be the same,

And hopefully, before too long,

I’ll see you all again!