Just when most things are looking so grim along comes something that blasts away all gloom. It’s called England: Poems from a School and is written by pupils from Oxford Spires Academy. It’s an absolute tonic. Magic. It’s fresh, original, lyrical, complex, unpretentious and technically very accomplished.
“Great by any standard,” Philip Pullman observes.
It has been brought together by writer-in-residence and editor, Kate Clanchy, and the school’s English department, whose teaching is clearly phenomenal and full of tender, forensic attention.
The pupils come from a poor part of Oxford. They are not especially “academic”, neither rich nor privileged – 20 per cent are White British, 80 per cent from all over the world. Many are refugees from conflict and poverty. There are 30 languages and 50 dialects. There is no dominant culture and no “cultural silencing”. The result is writing which is urgent, charged, necessary and as serious as your life – not a fluent hobby of mere privilege.
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