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School Poetry Profile: SELWYN Selwyn Primary School is situated in the London Borough of Newham close to West Ham Park and just down the road from the multi-cultural shopping area of Green Street. The school caters for 400 pupils from many different cultures including 30 deaf pupils who are fully integrated into mainstream. Selwyn's principal aim is to ensure that all children receive a vibrant education in an enjoyable and challenging learning environment which promotes and celebrates our school motto Achievement through Teamwork. It aims to offer standards of excellence for all children by providing a broad and balanced educational experience within a supportive environment where every pupil feels valued and respected.

Poetry Activities
We first became seriously involved in poetry writing when Matthew Sweeney visited about three years ago to do a poetry reading. Matthew's amusing and thought provoking poems immediately captured the attention of both pupils and staff. With a Poetry Places grant, we invited Matthew back for a poet-in-residence project, mainly involving Year 6 pupils. Although all the children in the year group joined in the poetry reading sessions, for much of the time Matthew worked with a small group of talented enthusiasts. Overall, there were about eight half day workshops over a six month period.

Matthew has recently been back to work with Year 5 pupils and at present we are planning another residency, possibly in Autumn 2000. Matthews's visits usually last half a day. As well as doing a poetry reading, his programme normally involves the children working on specific tasks to improve their writing technique and raise their awareness of the power of language.

Although Matthew has high expectations, he makes the serious business of writing poetry great fun for everybody. A key requirement is that the children will read their work to the rest of the group. In his no-nonsense way, Matthew manages to generate superb confidence in even the most shy pupils so that eventually they become polished performers.

Public exposure
Our very helpful local newspaper, the Newham Recorder, takes a keen interest in the poetry project. In April 1999 we published an anthology of Year 6 work entitled Primary Poets. To launch the anthology, we organised a poetry reading for parents and friends when both the published Primary Poets and Matthew read their work to an invited audience.

Primary Poets is featured in the Arts Section of our website at www.selwyn.newham.sch.uk

The anthology has been commended by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, and also by (Lord ) Melvyn Bragg, who takes a keen interest in the work of Selwyn school.

Primary Poets won the creative artists of the year in Newham's 1999 prestigious "Shining Through" awards hosted by BBC Newsround presenter Kate Sanderson. Three of the young poets read their own work to a distinguished audience of over three hundred guests including the Mayor of Newham.

Funding and Partners
Besides the Poetry Places grant, we've had a generous donation from Tate & Lyle Sugars who have an established reputation for promoting literacy in Newham schools. But perhaps the biggest thrill of all was having two of the poems from Primary Poets published in the TES.

- Ciaran Clerkin, Headteacher

The Poetry Society will be collecting School Poetry Profiles to post on the Education pages of its website.

If you would like your school's 'Poetry Profile' to be posted, please e-mail a description to us (and URL link if applicable): education@poetrysociety.org.uk

Your comments are welcome: jeansprackland@poetrysociety.org.uk

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