A guide to choosing your own fate despite the odds being against you using ‘Thirteen’ by Caleb Femi. For Key Stages 3-5.

Born of Water: a reading and writing activity for KS3. For National Poetry Day 2013 by Mandy Coe. Based on the poems Tornado by Rachel Rooney and Fog by Carl Sandburg.

Take refuge with a resource about how picking up a pen can help us all let go.

A resource exploring the ways preconceptions can shape how we see the world.

Taking refuge in memories and building inner strength can help, during troubling times.

A resource about building a place of refuge using kindness.

Explore the refugee experience with this resource about how it feels to find a new home.

Exploring the idea that hope is possible and positive in even the bleakest of situations.

Featuring great poems around this year’s theme, Refuge, our free resources are full of ways to get students reading, discussing, performing, and writing – no matter their confidence level. They’re ready to go as worksheets, or you can use them as prompts and thought starters for your class activities. They’re designed by cross-curriculum experts to be used in all sorts of subject lessons, with materials available all the way from KS1 to KS5. By engaging your classes with poetry, you’ll give them their own refuge to express themselves and think about the world around them differently.

Discuss the power of perspective in this thought-provoking resource.

Exploring injustice and contrasts of experience in times of war.

Find refuge in the shared experiences that bring people together across oceans.

A resource focused on finding refuge in a place that is special to you.

Featuring great poems around this year’s theme, Refuge, our free resources are full of ways to get students reading, discussing, performing, and writing – no matter their confidence level. They’re ready to go as worksheets, or you can use them as prompts and thought starters for your class activities. They’re designed by cross-curriculum experts to be used in all sorts of subject lessons, with materials available all the way from KS1 to KS5. By engaging your classes with poetry, you’ll give them their own refuge to express themselves and think about the world around them differently.

Take refuge in nature. Looking at what can be found outdoors to inspire ideas.

Take refuge in mental wellbeing. A poem focused on breathing and your own imagination.

A resource exploring how we can find refuge in the things we collect.

Use this magnificent new lesson plan to spark off classroom discussion and inspire students to write their own poetry. It is written by poet Cheryl Moskowitz and features a huge variety of poems, all loosely related to the theme of stars. This lesson plan features a poem by Christina Rossetti.

A guide to identifying key or ‘clue’ words within poems that students are reading, providing a framework to reflect on word choice in their own writing. Students will complete a reflection task at the beginning and end of the session. For Key Stage 2 and featuring ‘Sonnet with particles of gold’ by Nina Mingya Powles.

National Poetry Day (1st October 2020) is an annual celebration of poetry and all things poetical. It is about everybody sharing, reading, writing and enjoying poetry. Use this pack of tips and activity ideas and join in the celebrations – not only on National Poetry Day itself but all year round. It’s full of activities for teachers (both primary and secondary) and also contains book recommendations.