Reference from Mrs. Helen Beauchamp
Senior Teacher, Brighton College of Media Arts

For Rev. Victor Robert Farrell

Date :- October 5th 2000

On 5/10 2000, National Poetry Day, Rob Farrell came to East Brighton College of Media Arts to work with students from year 7 to year 11. Rob worked alongside the English Teachers to inspire and motivate students to write poetry. He was very successful. Staff and students alike commented on his enthusiasm, his love of poetry and his belief that there is a poet in every one of us. In one class, students who find English difficult and ‘boring’ were contributing to a collective class poem, which valued every child’s contribution. Rob proved to be a good teacher in that he actively involved students in their learning and made the lessons interesting, lively and amusing. The teachers were very enthusiastic about the work with the students; they found Rob easy to work with and would welcome a repeat visit. The students enjoyed the experience immensely; comments afterwards included: ‘cool’, ‘I didn’t know I could write poetry’, ‘poetry is fun’, ‘I enjoyed reading out the class poem’. At the end of the day, a group of year 7 students were arranging to e-mail their poems to Rob. This was a successful day and I would recommend Rob to any school seeking to work with a poet.

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