ONE nutter and three sensible people won the 10th Swindon Festival of Literature Youth Slam at the Arts Centre on Saturday.

1N and 3SP, the shortened version of their full name, was a team consisting of four Year Eight pupils from Commonweal School who prevailed in Saturday’s competition.

Aayushi Sood, 13, Sumayyah Akhter, 13, Angelina King Rubio, 13, and Jake Kirwan, 12, were the winners in a performance poetry bout with seven other Swindon secondary schools.

“We wanted to make the school look good,” said Jake. “Last year they came first and third with their two teams. Once we were in the final we were determined to win it. But we were very surprised when our name was called out.”

Aaayushi said: “It was very scary at first. We were all nervous. It was creepy having to come on the stage in front of all these people.”

On the sixth day of the literature festival, schools readied their best English pupils from Year Eight and sent them out to battle on the stage at the Arts Centre.

Josie Williams, community arts development officer at Commonweal, organises the youth slam and said the confidence it gave participants was the reason for its inclusion in the festival timetable.

“It’s all transferrable skills. It takes confidence to stand up in front of a bunch of people and perform,” she said.