Many months ago, senior Italian students in Years 9 - 12 began their preparations for the recitation of a poem in Italian to compete in the Dante Alighieri Poetry Awards, a prestigious competition with 42 schools participating this year and over 1400 students entering.

Students may enter in one of two categories: Non-Italian or Italian-Australian. Non-Italian students are those who do not have exposure to the language outside of the school, while Italian-Australian students have regular contact with the Italian language outside of school through family members.

The purpose of the competition is to deliver and recite a poem, focusing on pronunciation, intonation, expression, fluency, as well as public speaking skills. Our students spent countless hours in class and outside of school memorising their poem and working on their delivery.

Hume Anglican Grammar had 21entrants attend the University of Melbourne to complete the first round of the competition. Seven out of the 21 students were selected to return to the University to compete in the second round of the competition, in a knock-out style format. A number of students were called back, reaching the second and even third rounds.

This year, the results from the competition have been the best yet, with two of the VCE students receiving third place. Ravneet (Year 12) received 3rd place in the non-Italian division, while Mia (Year 11) received 3rd place in the Italian-Australian division. We are extremely proud of our students' efforts and look forward to participating in the competition once again in 2024.