Carniny Primary celebrate pupils’ success in poetry competition

The school were delighted with the recent news that two pupils in P6/7F) - Ellie Kitson and Emily Legg - had gained top places in the Express Yourself – A Children’s Mental Health Poetry Competition from AWARE, supported by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland through the Community Arts, Culture & Heritage Fund.

Launched in February for Children’s Mental Health Week, the competition allowed pupils to express their thoughts and feelings about the past year through creative writing.

As a ‘Take 5 Steps to Wellbeing School’, Carniny Primary have opened up important conversations about mental health.

A spokepserson said: “This has been a very difficult year and it is so important to talk about how we are feeling.

“Massive congratulations to Ellie Kitson and Emily Legg”. Ellie won first prize in the competition with her poem ‘Feel the Changes’ and fellow Carniny pupil, Emily was in the ‘Top Ten’ with her entry - ‘Take 5 Wellbeing Poem’.

A spokesperson for the competition said of the entries: “We would just like to say that they are all absolutely fantastic! All the children should be very proud of themselves. We have chosen our top 10 poems which we felt were excellently written, expressed feelings openly and honestly and had strong & encouraging messages on the topic of mental health”. The top 10 poems will be turned into a professionally illustrated children’s book and mental health resource and copies will be sent to every school who participated in the competition and each featured poet will get a copy to keep. Certificates will also be sent to participating schools and the winning poems will be featured on the Aware website at www.aware-ni.org/express-yourself