Group Recitation Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

A team item in which a class or group of pupils recites a set Welsh poem together from memory, in the schools’ eisteddfod behind this page, and is placed on unity, clarity, expression and confidence.

Group Recitation is a team speaking item. A whole group of pupils stands together, learns the same poem by heart and says it aloud as one performance, with no accompaniment and nothing to read from. Where Solo Recitation tests one voice, this item tests how well a dozen voices can become one: the same pace, the same breaths, the same emphasis on the same words. It is the spoken cousin of a choir.

In the schools’ eisteddfod this page is built from, the item is run in Welsh for primary-age pupils. The poems are set by the organisers rather than chosen freely, and each comes with key words to help the children learn the vocabulary. There are two team classes: a Foundation Phase team (Reception to Year 2, roughly ages 4–6) and a Years 3–6 team (roughly ages 7–10). The rules ask for a group of 8 to 15 pupils, so a school normally sends a whole class group rather than a handful of volunteers.

A round is brief. The team is called in programme order, walks on together, takes its places, says the title and recites the poem, then leaves the stage. The published rules give a points table for places rather than a marks sheet, so how a recitation is weighed is left to the judge’s ear, but the things a listener can hear in a group are clear: whether the words arrive together, whether the whole team can be understood at the back of the hall, and whether the verse sounds understood rather than merely memorised.

Organisers include a group recitation class because it lets every child in a class take part at almost no cost, builds confidence in the language through shared effort, and rewards teaching as much as talent. For a school it is often the first time very young pupils perform on a real stage, and the strength of the shared voice carries the nervous ones.

Where Group Recitation is run

In eTalenter’s data this exact title, Group Recitation, is carried by one template: a community council’s schools’ eisteddfod in Wales, which holds a Welsh-language group recitation class for a Foundation Phase team and a Years 3–6 team. Spoken-verse team items exist in school festivals in many countries under names such as choral speaking or verse speaking, but this page describes Group Recitation as that edition runs it and does not claim wider use of the exact title.

• Wales (United Kingdom)

Key facts

• Team entry: a group of 8 to 15 pupils from one school recites together. The edition also runs Solo Recitation as a separate individual item.
• Two team classes in this edition: Foundation Phase team (Reception to Year 2, ages about 4–6) and Years 3–6 team (ages about 7–10). Boys and girls take part together.
• Language: Welsh. The poems are set by the organisers and the programme gives key words for each one.
• Places earn points for the school: first 10, second 8, third 6 and merit 2. In this edition the first three teams also win a voucher for their school, and every participant receives a medal and a certificate.
• The edition prints no judging criteria with marks and no time limit for a recitation, so none are assumed here; the template carries a score out of 100 that the judge fills in as a single mark.

On eTalenter, Group Recitation is filed under Literary and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Group Recitation is most often entered as an Team competition, typically scored out of 100.

What judges look at in Group Recitation

What a Group Recitation panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• Unity and togetherness: the first thing a listener notices is whether the team starts, pauses and ends as one. Words that land at slightly different moments blur into noise, so a team that breathes together beats one with a few brilliant voices.
• Clarity and pronunciation: with many voices at once, the hard Welsh sounds (the double l, ch, rh and long vowels) can disappear. Crisp consonants and clear word endings, taken slowly enough for the back of the hall to hear, earn more than speed.
• Memory and fluency: the poem has to come out whole, with no prompting from the side and no ragged restarts. One child losing a line and the rest carrying on smoothly is judged far more kindly than the whole group stopping.
• Expression and meaning: volume and pace should follow the verse – softer for a quiet line, a shared pause before a surprise, a lift on a question. A flat chant reads as drilled rather than understood.
• Presence and discipline: standing still, facing the audience, eyes up, no fidgeting or giggling, and a calm walk on and off. A tidy entrance sets the tone before a word is spoken.
• Faithfulness to the set piece: the printed poem is what is marked. Cutting verses, changing words or adding movement the rules do not ask for makes it a different performance from the one the judge expects.

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Group Recitation under Scoring Setup, or start from the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Group Recitation

How entrants and their teachers usually get Group Recitation right on the day:

• Start six weeks ahead. Week one: read the poem aloud as a class. Week two: learn the meaning of every key word. Weeks three to five: memorise a few lines at a time, always saying them together. Week six: rehearse the entrance, the performance and the exit.
• Choose the group sensibly. Eight to fifteen is the allowed size, so pick pupils who can keep time and be heard, and keep a reserve so illness on the day does not collapse the team.
• Teach the breathing points. Mark in the printed poem, with a pencil, where the whole group takes a breath, and rehearse so nobody breathes in the middle of a phrase alone. Shared breath is what makes many voices sound like one.
• Use a conductor in practice, then take them away. A teacher who nods the pace in rehearsal helps the team lock together; on the day the group should have learned the rhythm well enough not to need a cue.
• Work the hard sounds separately. Pick the three words the class finds hardest, say them slowly ten times, then put them back into the line. Ask a fluent Welsh speaker to listen to the whole team and flag any word that is going missing.
• Practise standing in the real formation. Rehearse in the order and spacing the team will use on stage, and once, if possible, in the actual hall, so the voices carry and nobody is surprised by the echo.
• Plan for a bad moment. Teach the group that if a line wobbles they keep going together rather than stopping, and that the strongest voices near the front steer the pace back.
• After a result, ask for any judge’s remarks the organisers offer, record the next rehearsal on a phone and listen for uneven starts and mumbled endings, and choose a slightly longer poem the following year.
• Ideas, not rules (ways to make practice enjoyable): split the poem so each row of children has a verse to lead, then bring it together; let the team record a class video and mark their own best moment; run a friendly practice against another class in assembly; draw a picture for each verse to help the order stick.

Frequently asked questions

Is Group Recitation judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Team entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

How many pupils are in a Group Recitation team?

In the edition covered here, a group is 8 to 15 pupils from one school. The template carries this as a registration rule because the platform has no field for group size, so a coordinator should enforce it when checking entries.

Do we choose our own poem for Group Recitation?

In the edition covered here, no. The organisers set the poems and publish them with key words, so each team learns the piece for its class. Another festival may allow a free choice, so always check the rules of the event you enter.

Is Group Recitation the same as choral speaking?

They are close: both are a team speaking a text together as one voice. This page describes the Welsh-language schools’ edition with set poems and two age classes, while a choral speaking page describes the item in general; the judging guide linked here covers both.

Is there a time limit or a marking scheme?

The edition prints neither a time limit nor a marks table for recitation. It prints the points that placings earn for the school (first 10, second 8, third 6, merit 2), so what the judge listens for is best treated as general advice on unity, clarity, memory and expression.

Can a pupil take part in both the solo and the group recitation?

The rules treat Solo Recitation and Group Recitation as separate items with their own classes, so a pupil can appear in a team and, where the school selects them, in a solo class. Check the organiser’s entry form for any limit on how many items one pupil may take.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full recitation & poetry judging criteria guide, or browse every literary competition item.