PSA Pamper Evening 10th May 2013 - Littleover Community School

More National Success!
Amnesty Protest Song National Competition
As we reported last time four girls in Year 9 were longlisted for a
National prize in the Amnesty International Protest Song Competition.
All pupils in Year Nine entered this as part of their Citizenship work on Human Rights. We
were very pleased to hear that the girls were then shortlisted and invited to Amnesty HQ in
London for a prestigious ceremony last month. Here is their report:
On 30 th April 2013 we went to the Amnesty Headquarters in London after being shortlisted for
the Amnesty Protest Song Competition. When we arrived at the headquarters we were greeted
by a representative from Amnesty who gave us a name badge and then took us to be interviewed
for Radio 1 by Ricky Norwood who plays Fatboy from Eastenders. We were all really
excited because we met a celebrity. He asked us a few questions about our song and we got
to talk to him about Amnesty as he is a big supporter. Afterwards we got shown to a room,
where all the parents and other people from different schools, so we could eat our ceremonial
lunch. We all thought it would be really fancy, but it turns out it was a lot of boxes full of Pizza
Express. There must have been at least 100 boxes full of different kinds of pizza, yummy!!
After lunch we were told to go to a room upstairs where we were then interviewed for a short
film the Amnesty workers were making. Once again they asked us about why and how we
came up with the piece. We were a bit nervous though, after all we were going to be in a film!
After about half an hour it was time for the ceremony to start. We were all seated in specific
places next to more of the shortlisted competitors while the parents and our PSHE teacher;
Ms Wilson were at the back. The ceremony was presented by Sonali Shah, a presenter from
Newsround. One by one the winners were announced, there were around 5-10 sections
including a Young Journalism competition and the Protest Song performance category. During
announcing each winner the performers went up on stage and performed their songs. All of
them were very good; we would all find it hard just to choose one winner. Around an hour later
there was a short break. During this break we met Kate Tempest, a rapper and poet who
works with Amnesty and has recently become the youngest person to have been awarded the
Ted Hughes Award. We were all really happy about this because we’d learnt about her in
class and thought she was really good. Soon we went back in and after one or two more categories
it was time for ours.
They announced all the different shortlisted entries along with a picture of the competitors and
a short video. We were all really embarrassed when ours came on. They told us all to go onto
the stage and when we did we all were handed a gift bag. In it there was a CD of all the long
listed songs, stickers, a balloon, badges, an Amnesty T-shirt and some more things. We then
had a picture with Sonali and waited at the side of the stage for them to announce the winner.
At this point all of us were so nervous! We couldn’t believe it was actually happening, to come
in the top three out of over 700 hundred entries! They then said the winning entry, but
unfortunately it wasn’t ours, it was a 16 year old girl called Isla Ratcliffe. She was definitely a
worthy winner, her song was amazing. We then clapped and sat back down. We were quite
disappointed, but then we realised how far we’d actually come and seeing how proud
everyone was with what we’d done lifted our spirits.
After the ceremony was over we were given an envelope which contained the information of
where we had come. Slowly and anxiously we opened it and it turned out we had got second
runner up! We were all so delighted and all the parents and our teacher kept saying how
proud and happy they were.
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