IT was poetry in motion for students who took a master class in urban athletics to help springboard their creative talents.
Pupils at Risedale Sports and Community College leapt to the challenge of expressing themselves through the physical sport of Parkour before using the experience to develop their writing and language skills.
Developed in France in the late 1980s, Parkour, or free running, is based on jumping, climbing, swinging, vaulting and rolling movements over indoor or outdoor obstacles.
It encourages students to problem-solve and to tackle challenges in a positive way.
Teacher Selina Brierly explained: “Our English department selected 18 year nine students who they felt would benefit from learning a new physical exercise which they could then use to help in their discussion and writing work.
“All of the pupils have been really engaged in the activity and their confidence, not only in their own physical ability but also in their creative language, has really grown.
“They have all worked hard to translate their experience into words and ideas that has really helped to support their poetry writing skills.”
Organised by TRY Reading, Wordquake and the North Yorkshire Library Service, the project saw the students coached by three Parkour experts before focusing their experience in creative writing and photography lessons.
Dina Murphy, of Wordquake, part of East Riding Libraries, said: “We concentrated our writing lesson on the sensory aspects of what the students had learnt through Parkour.
“This included how they felt in the air and how their bodies moved and we used these feelings to work on their metaphors and adjectives within their writing.
“We found that the students found it much easier to express themselves after Parkour and that translating physical activity into academic improvement was really successful.”
Student and keen rugby player Arron Mcbride, 14, of Catterick, added: “I like to push myself physically and Parkour was really interesting.
“Having experienced it made it much easier to write about and was much better than being in a classroom.”
