For Refugee Week, year 7 have been studying the poem, ‘The Day the War Came’ – a poem about unaccompanied child refugees. Children’s author Nicola Davies wrote the poem in response to the government’s decision not to allow lone refugee children a safe haven in the UK.
Our students analysed the poem and then created their own, a sample of which is below:
The Day the Horror Struck
The day the horror struck
I was in bed.
Happy as can be.
Until my dreams went lopsided.
All around me, I heard screams,
screams of horror.
I ran out the house
lonely and confused.
I said to the man,
“What has happened?”
“War has happened”
I was scared, like prey hiding from a predator.
All around me people started running in one direction, to the harbour.
I ran and ran and ran until my legs couldn’t take anymore.
I lay on the ground distraught.
Hoping, wishing, it all would stop.
Peter Walton 7LDo
War
I felt it.
In my head.
In my heart.
The reason I fed.
War
The only thing I know now
I wasn’t far,
But before I could stop myself,
I looked back.
I screamed.
Then I awoke with a start,
memories flashing…
Of the devastation
Of the corpses
Of the screaming.
I felt it all.
The pain,
It returned.
My head throbbed.
My pulse quickened.
My heart raced.
This was the true horror of war.
Amber Lewington 7LNo
I Have Walked for a Long Time
I have walked for a long time,
caught the back of trucks and trains,
sometimes I get stopped by the police.
I will never get asylum.
My children need to go to school,
Others are injured and need a hospital
Some want a job to work and have a home.
Everyone wants a normal life.
Doctors don’t come to help,
Charity are the only ones who care
But they spend more on others
We want to be free.
They put up fences up
All around the road
To stop us catching a ride
that will take us to our freedom.
Hassan Ali 7EDu
