It’s that time of year again! What better way to warm up during
the autumn term than an annual joke competition. After the success of last year’s
Voice Box we decided to get the laughter started and take part again. Each
campus held their own Voice Box competition over the last few weeks through
class and whole school assemblies; and we held the intercampus final on Friday.
We chose to host this year’s competition at the campus which
gave us last year’s national finalist, Jesse, and it was a lovely afternoon. The
audience was made up of parents, staff, KS2 and our judging panel (our Primary
Governor, Ian Lavery, MP and our Director of Data).
We heard jokes from 3 children of each campus. The runners
up from each told us their jokes first; then we heard from each of our 5
winners. While the judges were deciding on the winning joke we were delighted
to welcome back Jesse who told us the joke that got him to the national final
last year. Jesse started secondary school in September so it was lovely to
welcome him back to his primary school. Everyone
was excited to see him and he told us his joke and talked about his experience
of the final in London (read about it here).
Ian Lavery gave out the certificates and medals to all of
the runners up before moving on to announcing the winner. It was a tough
competition and I’m glad it wasn’t me making the decision! The winner from each
campus received a trophy, medal and certificate, with the overall winner
receiving an extra special trophy.
It was a lovely afternoon and I am really proud of all the
children who took part. I’ve received lots of positive feedback from staff
about the increase in the children’s confidence and how much they enjoyed it. Some
of the parents also commented about how proud they were seeing their children
telling jokes in front of a large audience.
I feel privileged to have been able to take part in this
again; our winning joke has been submitted to RCSLT and we look forward to
hearing whether she has been shortlisted to the national final.
Whatever the
outcome, all of the children are winners to us.
