Every year the school enters international poetry and short story competitions.

In the 2016 annual OIB community poetry competition, Sixtine Geffray, at the time in 1ère, was second prize winner. The competition is judged by Celia O’Donavan, from Cambridge.

When sadness comes out

” Sliding, flickering, falling

In the shadows of wistfulness.

Crushing, crashing, breaking, wrecking

The chains of loneliness.

Tired of waiting.  Waiting and hoping.

Hoping and crying.  Crying and drowning.

My dreams are burning in the ice.  My hopes are bleeding.

My heart is fading in the pain.  My soul is crumbling

And i will never know what’s on the other side.

And I will never know what windy storms hide.

Until I cross that slippery bridge.

The wind should blow on the dust of past.

The sky might fill with smoke at last.

Under the weight of my fallen body,

The yonder hills collapse.  The foam of the black sea

Dries on my soul’s remains.

Bridge, let me pass through your wooden piers, show me the place where light appears.

I’ll cross those thousand miles to reach the gleam.

I’ll run.  I’ll race.  I’ll fly, I’ll flee.

I’ll open my eyes.  I’ll see …”