As a British international school, we embrace a wide variety of cultural events around the year, and Burns Night, a traditional Scottish fete, is no exception. We celebrated it with a whole-school poetry reading event.
Many people around the world may not be acquainted with Burns Night, and the celebrations which go with it. Burns Night supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns.
On Burns Night, Scottish people celebrate by having a traditional Scottish dinner, and when dinner is served the host reads out Burn’s poem ‘Address to a Haggis’ before ceremoniously cutting the haggis, Scotland's national dish. Many of our students looked horrified initially at the ingredients of a haggis, but those of us who have tried it before assured everyone that it really is rather delicious. Our Year 10 and Year 11 students read the traditional poem out loud, with a traditional haggis cutting online. Enjoy their recordings below.
Who do you think read it most Scottish?
Year 10 and 11 were not the only year groups to honour this tradition, in fact several year groups across the school read out and recorded a poem by Burns and got in the mood for this annual Scottish celebration. Enjoy 'To a Mouse' performed by Year 5 and Year 6 below.
Outstanding Scottish accents by Year 5 - excellent effort!
Tremendous reading by Year 6.
Our Key Stage 3 students chose perhaps the most famous poem by Burns, ‘Auld Lang Syne’, and our Year 7 group even attempted to sing it, as this poem is in fact a song too! Does your country sing Auld Lang Syne at midnight on New Year's Eve?
Can you guess who has sung this before?
Finishing off our round up of this year's Burns Night celebrations at BISL, here are our wonderful Year 13 English literature students reading Burns' most romantic poem, A Red, Red Rose.
Now that you are in the spirit of celebration, if you feel like embracing Burns Night tonight at home, our students will be able to tell you all about it!
