"taking the fear out 
of teaching poetry"

Is poetry an important feature of life in your school?
Does it enrich and enliven the Literacy Hour?
Do pupils write it eagerly and read it with enjoyment?
Do teachers approach it with confidence and enthusiasm?

poetryclass is the solution for teachers wanting to bring poetry alive in the classroom. Our online poetry classroom and unique INSET training provides teachers with a 'nuts and bolts' insight into how poetry works. A training team of poets, all of whom are highly experienced with work in schools and have between them hundreds of tried and tested ideas, is available to work with teachers to overcome their problems and concerns with teaching poetry. 

The Poetry Society has a long and successful history of education work. We find that working with poetry is not only a creative end in itself but also a powerful tool for raising standards in literacy and developing language skills.  It frequently releases untapped potential amongst students who are not confident in traditional narrative or essay writing.  It also offers exciting challenges to targeted groups of students and through subject areas across the curriculum.


Forthcoming Poetryclass day

Reading Poetry
a day of poetry pleasure for teachers

Poetryclass INSET day with poet Sue Dymoke
Key Stages 2, 3 & 4

Thursday 17 July 2008
10am - 3:30pm

Shakespeare Memorial Room
Birmingham Central Library
Chamberlain Square
Birmingham B3 3HQ


To tie in with the National Year of Reading and July’s theme of “Rhythm and Rhyme” month, we have set up a Poetryclass day dedicated to Teachers as Readers.

Teachers will be encouraged to imagine, explore and entertain as they read and write. Each session will be flexibly structured and filled with creative activities to ensure that teachers have fun with poetry and take away ideas to inspire their own reading and teaching of the genre further.

Sue Dymoke will take teachers through three sessions looking at teachers as readers, capturing responses to poetry through drama, visual images and written speech, and looking at what exactly makes a poem.

Thanks to generous funding from The Ratcliff Foundation, we can offer this day to teachers at a very special reduced rate.

The full price per teacher is £30 (including lunch and refreshments)

In addition to the workshops with Sue Dymoke, the price includes:

  • A resource pack including information, lesson plans and materials to use in the classroom.

  • A copy of ‘The Poetry Book for Primary Schools’ (ed. Anthony Wilson) or ‘Jumpstart Poetry in the Secondary School’ (ed. Cliff Yates)

  • The Poetry Society’s Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award anthologies, posters from Poems on the Underground along with other materials.

  • A toolkit of tried-and-tested techniques designed to get students thinking, reading, writing, redrafting and editing. 

  • Ideas for differentiation and progression.

  • Opportunities to raise questions and concerns.

  • Full buffet lunch and tea/coffee throughout the day.

All teachers are welcome, and all sessions will be non-threatening and kind to teachers!

To book a place, please call Angel Dahouk on 020 7420 9889 
or email adahouk@poetrysociety.org.uk 


ABOUT SUE DYMOKE

Sue Dymoke is a senior lecturer at the University of Leicester where she leads the PGCE English course. Before moving into Teacher Education she worked as an English teacher in 11 - 18 schools for sixteen years. 

Sue specialises in researching and writing about the teaching of poetry and leading workshops with primary and secondary teachers on varied topics including: ways into writing poetry; poetry and science; planning the poetry curriculum from KS1 to Post-16 level. 

Sue is a member of the education working group of the national Poetry Archive and a regular speaker at teacher conferences. Her publications include: Drafting and Assessing Poetry: A Guide for Teachers (Paul Chapman Publishing, 2003), The New Girls: new and selected poems (Shoestring Press, 2004) and Not Just a Game: Sporting Poetry (Five Leaves, 2006, an anthology co-edited with Andy Croft). She has also written many articles for Secondary English Magazine on teaching poetry.

‘Very inspirational…. Super training…. Just try and stop those poems being written!’ (Primary Science co-ordinators who took part in a ‘Poetry and Magnetism’ workshop in 2007).


Article by Andy Croft
"
Going into schools these days is a complicated business. You are expected to be entertaining and funny and accessible. You are often there so that the school can show it has taken steps to address literacy problems identified in the last OFSTED report, and to help the school promote itself in the local paper. You are required to help deliver the national literacy strategy, and more often than not to address issues like bullying, drugs and racism. "...

 

· Site Map ·

 

photo of Poet Laureate Andrew Motion

 

"poetryclass is a wonderful initiative, designed to give insight to students, encouragement to teachers, and illumination to all those who want to make poetry part of their lives."  Andrew Motion

  • "Well organised, well targeted and well received"
    KESWICK SCHOOL, CUMBRIA

  • "An exceptionally useful session"
    LONG DITTON ST MARY'S PRIMARY SCHOOL

  • "Many of the teachers said it was the best INSET they had ever attended"
    LOWRY CENTRE

The Magic Box

I will put in my box
The sound of the sea rolling,
The taste of chopped pear,
A cheetah zooming,
Some silver lumps,
And feeling sad.

Kate Welton, Year 1, Rattlesden Primary School, Suffolk
Written out of Anthony Wilson's Poetry Workshop

email: adahoukATpoetrysocietyDOTorgDOTuk or call Angel Dahouk on 020 7420 9889

Register your visit here using our feedback form

URL http://www.poetryclass.net © 2000-2003 The Poetry Society

Poetryclass is a project of The Poetry Society, originally funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families
logo and link to Department of Education and Skills

THIS WEBSITE WAS LAST UPDATED ON 25 February 2008