How our primary school got children to fall in love with poetry

Every Monday after school, more than a dozen children at St Nicholas Priory Primary School in Great Yarmouth meet for Poetry Club.

The club has more than doubled in size since it first got started, and has seen one of our pupils make it to the final of a national poetry competition.

It has even had an influence on the wider school choosing oracy and performance in end-of-year units.

So how did we get children so excited about poetry? And why did we decide this needed to be a focus?

We recognise how important it is to give our children access to the arts, showing them that they have a right to be included in this world. In Great Yarmouth we are quite isolated from the rest of the country, and we are ranked 51st out of 33,755 neighbourhoods in the government index of deprivation.

Many of our children live in very challenging circumstances, but we don’t like to see disadvantage as a barrier.

Getting pupils into poetry

Five years ago, Poetry By Heart came on our radar. This is a competition that invites children to choose poems that speak to them, then learn them by heart and share them aloud for other people to enjoy. It is also a website for teaching poetry with a wide range of poems for children of all ages, with tips and resources to support learning by heart.

We originally engaged with Poetry By Heart as an in-class initiative to increase encounters with poetry. We found that our children loved it, and wanted more opportunities than just their reading lessons. 

And so the after-school Poetry Club was born, with children learning poems and performing them aloud. We entered the best performances into the Poetry By Heart competition, and, after a couple of years, one child was judged “best in county”. 

Last year, one of our children - Shranithi - was a finalist.

Poetry Club has become so popular that what was originally one teacher and five children is now four teachers and more than a dozen children. We already have children who are excited to join next year when they go up to Year 3, and the club now offers children opportunities to write their own poems and research poets.

The biggest champion of our poets is ICT teacher Mr Parramint, who finds opportunities in assemblies, church services and even governors’ meetings for them to perform.

Poetry By Heart has now influenced the entire school. Children in every year write and perform their own poetry around the theme of identity, linked to our oracy target. Poetry has become a part of school performances, services and assemblies. 

We initially hoped that participation in Poetry By Heart would introduce our children to more poetry, and increase oracy; none of us expected it to take off to the extent that it has. And none of us expected the benefits to be as wide-ranging as they are.

Increasing resilience

Poetry has given our children the confidence to express themselves. It has increased their resilience, and it has lit a fire of possibility within them. Watching Shranithi performing on the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe in London at the Poetry By Heart Grand Finale sent a clear and powerful message to the whole school: you can do this. You are talented, and the world is waiting for you.

Because of our geographical isolation and inherent social disadvantages, access to the arts is difficult, and many of the children in our area don’t often get opportunities like this. Seeing Shranithi succeed has changed their expectations of what they are capable of, particularly in the arts.

The children who attend Poetry Club have really thrown themselves into all aspects of performance. It has been a privilege to see some normally quiet pupils embrace the creative and weird.

When we asked them why they keep coming back every Monday, the resounding answer was: “This makes us more confident. We can be ourselves here.”

At St Nicholas Priory, we have fallen in love with poetry. We believe we are doing something really special.

Poetry Club has been part of our wider school commitment to the arts and community, with recognition from accreditation schemes Artsmark and Global Neighbours. The school will also be presented with a Special Award at the Poetry By Heart Grand Finale at Shakespeare’s Globe on 6 July, in recognition of the work we have done around the competition.

Launching a school poetry club

If your school is interested in launching a poetry club, perhaps as part of meeting the new enrichment benchmarks, where should you begin?

We suggest leaning on anyone with performance or English skills in your school and wider community. Try to maximise cultural partnerships with other schools, colleges and theatres in your area. Poetry By Heart also offers resources to help schools get started with their programme, and teachers can access others here from the The Poetry Society, UK Literacy Association and the Children’s Poetry Archive.

Most importantly, have fun with it. It’s hard to do it wrong - if your children have had a go at it and enjoyed themselves, that’s a mark of success.

Poetry is way more accessible than you might think, and children will rise to the challenge of memorising a poem if they find one that speaks to them.

Sarah Horspole and Madeline Coe are teachers at St Nicholas Priory Primary School in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk