WORD - The Front Line is an inter-high school spoken word poetry competition, bringing together teams of young people from across Christchurch to share their stories in an explosion of youth expression.

It is a poetry slam with the purpose of engaging and growing the potential of our future leaders.

Our team of outstanding spoken word poets consisting of Brooke Nuualiitia, Mahina-Rose Kata, Te Rangimarie Tipene-Mangu, Angie Vaea, Zayden Taunoa-Bennett, and Santana Jackson-Siataga won the semi-final heats and went on to compete in the Grand Slam on 27th of August.

Mahina-Rose performed a solo piece about her life as a 16 year old, this was followed by Santana and Zayden performing their piece on family violence.

The final performance came from our quartet of Angie, Brooke, Mahina-Rose, and Te Rangimarie speaking about reclaiming their power from social media.

They were placed a very close second to Cashmere High School.

The students performed outstandingly, and also learned how much they could push themselves and share their truth using slam poetry. Thank you to Tusi Elisara and their coach Nakoda Tamaira-Cooper.