'Through Another's Eyes'.

The COBIS Poetry Competition continues to be a powerful celebration of student voice, creativity, and expression across our global school community.

Designed to inspire empathy, imagination, and creativity, the competition this year challenged young writers to step beyond their own experiences and reflect the world from a different perspective. The response was exceptional, with students producing thoughtful, moving, and highly original poems that demonstrated both technical skill and emotional depth.  

Celebrating Student Achievement

Winning poems were published on the COBIS website and shared across our community, with selected works also featured at the COBIS Annual Conference - providing students with an international platform for their voices to be heard.

We received 319 entries from 170 schools worldwide. Well done to all students who entered and congratulations to our competition winners! 

Key Stage 1-2 Winner and Runner-up

Winner: Toby, aged 10, St. Saviour's School Ikoyi
"Beautifully written and rhythmic. The use of effective, vivid imagery such as 'purpose stitched in every beat' and 'a builder not of walls but bridges wide', describes the character with style and lyricism. An inspiring, soulful poem."

Runner-up: Cherish, aged 9, St Constantine's International School
"Such a reflective, well-composed poem. You use questioning very well, in order to evoke investigation on the topic before drawing a conclusion in the final stanza."

Key Stage 3 Winner and Runner-up

Winner: Sophia, aged 13, Meadow Hall School
"Very poignant, quiet and controlled poem with such strength and hope. There are some moving, memorable and affecting images such as 'a mother who folds her dreams tight' or 'siblings whose bellies are quiet from practice'. I love the use of sparse language and short sentences for impact, and the carefully chosen rhymes. It's a very accomplished poem that I will happily read several times over. I love the way it starts with the sun rising and ends with the sun setting, and the use of 'one day' as the poem builds." 

Runner-up: Mariam, aged 13, Haileybury Almaty
"This poem packs a punch. The title and first line draw you in and the use of vivid imagery and colour sustained throughout is wonderful - tightening, stitching, silencing, reds and silvers. 'Remember girl' is a powerful refrain and works well within the structure. I like the way the verses beginning with 'I' are counterpoints and indented - making a break for freedom. Despite the oppression and pain felt and spelt out in the poem, I love the fact it ends with a glow. This was a very close second."

Key Stage 4-5 Winner and Runner-up

Winner: Natallia, aged 14, The British International School, Cairo
"A mature and moving poem, in which the speaker imagines another version of herself, a girl her own age, who has experienced war, displacement, the loss of her home, family and any sense of peace and normality. I loved this poem both for the depth of the speaker's imagination and empathy, but also for the incredible phrasing of individual lines: 'the words arrived wearing soft shoes / And sat down beside my tongue, unwilling to startle the room', or 'she wore my features as if they had been issued rather than chosen, / And every movement asked permission of the air.' These images feel so fresh and imaginatively observed, and the poem reaches a powerful conclusion about where this identification with the other has led the speaker: 'now every breath feels like borrowed air - / Fragile, undeserved, yet mine to use for something more than silence.' I would love to read more of this writer's work."
 

Runner-up: Annabel Liebat, aged 15, Halcyon London International School
"Such an assured poem - a beautifully empathetic response to the theme, in which the poem's speaker depicts a teenager's changing relationship with their grandfather, with roles reversed from the caring man who could fix everything and reassure the younger child, to the now teenage child caring for and reassuring the older man as his memory deteriorates. I particularly liked the form and the skilful simplicity of the language. There were some memorable images too: 'Maybe he was wandering through his thoughts, / looking for the light switch'. A close runner up."

A certificate and prize has been awarded to the winner and runner-up of each category.

Winner: £75 Amazon voucher     
Runner-up: £25 Amazon voucher