Greenpath Preparatory School’s Annual Declamation

Contest.

Greenpath Preparatory School held its annual declamation contest on the 25 th of

January 2024. As it is its 10th, the did not forget to bring the glitz and glamour it
always did. Our students spoke calmly and blissfully, it was a remarkable sight.
With some peculiar conclusions, our contest this year was one of our best.

Each grade declaimed a beautiful inspirational poem, taking into consideration

their maturity. The poem are as follows:
Year 1: Seize the Day
Year 2:
Year 3: The Box You’ve Outgrown
Year 4: Don’t Quit
Year 5: Believe This
Year 6: Desiderata
Year 7: Can’t
Year 8: Courage
Year 10: If
We had several inspirational poems handpicked by the Head of School, and with
some interesting turns of events. Our Year 9 class declaimed Good Timber, adding
a stanza written by them into their declamation; Year 11 declaiming two poems: It
Couldn’t Be Done and It Can’t Be Done. Our Year 7 class went to the event
sending eight students in its caliber each declaiming beautifully.

Our contestants were not chosen randomly, we had a long screening process to
select our contestants and it was made up of several recitations of our poems. We
first had our dry runs with all classes going on different days, with every student
scored on a basis of 0-18; zero being the lowest and eighteen being the highest.
The students who performed the best, getting a score between 17 and 18 -16 if
necessary- were chosen to present on that day, although the Year 7 class decided to
bring their A game to this contest and had eight students at the top. They eventually
had another screening process but still went into the event sending eight students.

Alas, the students did a lot of preparation and mindfulness exercises, even some
last-minute recitations and we still came out with only three winners from each
class. The energy coming from the Main auditorium was impactful and emotional,
with some parents even crying at some point, we can all agree that this was
something this year. Our parents had refreshments and snacks waiting for them as
they had to listen to poems getting increasingly longer, I mean who would want to
listen to Desiderata five times and not want a snack, and we had a wonderful
audience and a beautiful panel of judges scoring our students.

At the end of the event our contesting students ran into the waiting booth eagerly
waiting for their names to be called, and if it had not, they would leave the booth
shedding tears. We can all agree that we have done that once in our lives, who
would not cry after putting their heart and soul into that presentation and not be
picked. At least they had a cup of zobo to enjoy.

Our winners were given certificates, and the participating students also got
certificates. At the end of the day our student felt a sense of gratitude and
camaraderie as we saw our students’ put grins on their faces.