Poetry By Heart is a national competition in which young people choose poems they love, learn them by heart and perform them in school or college.
This isn’t simply a nice thing for young people to do - it’s underpinned by three pedagogical principles that support greater understanding of poetry through allowing pupils to inhabit the world of a poem from the inside, rather than analysing it from the outside.
We believe these principles can help to inform teachers’ approaches to poetry in the classroom, too. Here are the key ideas underpinning them.
1. Offer choice
In any subject, choice gives children and young people a sense of ownership of their learning, and that, in turn, drives engagement with the material being learned.
Research shows that offering pupils free choice over what they read is a key motivator to support reading for pleasure - and that this can also contribute to raising reading attainment.
Poetry By Heart invites young people to choose a poem they like and want to spend time with, a poem that will encourage and support them, and help them to find out who they are.
To support this principle, we make hundreds of poems freely available on our website for young people to explore.
2. Allow pupils to experience the poem
In learning to recite a poem, you experience the pulse of the text and the gradual unfolding of meaning that occurs.
This experiential approach is something that all pupils seem capable of, given time, encouragement and the right poem. And with this experiential learning in place, they have better tools for coming to know and enjoy other poems, including those they will encounter at GCSE.
Read more:
When pupils recognise that they can experience and enjoy a poem without having to pick every work apart, poetry will seem less intimidating and more accessible.
As the poet Daljit Nagra explains: “So much school time is spent analysing poetry, dismantling it as though it were a car and its parts needed to be revealed.”
But that isn’t why poetry is created. Instead, he says, “poetry exists to please, it exists to be read, heard and spoken”.
3. Harness poetry to develop oracy skills
In recent years, speaking and listening has often been neglected or limited to pupils giving a formal speech on a topic. But allowing pupils to perform poetry aloud gives them a different outlet to demonstrate fluency of speech, command of themselves and an audience, and powerful articulation of meaning.
For pupils who struggle with written literacy this can liberate them to show their understanding of a poem, and for pupils with English as an additional language, it offers an opportunity for mastery of English without them first having to compose their own text.
There are also great opportunities to develop listening skills, as the poems and performances can be used as a way into conversations that connect pupils in a meaningful dialogue. For example: “I really liked your poem; I loved the way you voiced this part”.
Teachers can harness those opportunities for discussion to develop oracy skills in everyone, not just the person performing.
Benefits for pupils - and teachers
Following these pedagogical principles can have tangible learning outcomes for pupils. Teachers have told us that pupils who take part in Poetry by Heart demonstrate increased engagement around poetry - and greater confidence in presenting to an audience.
Teachers also report improvements in memory, focus and concentration, as well as increased willingness to learn independently.
Feedback gathered from participating schools of all types and across key stages 2 to 5 bears out the hypothesis that getting to know a poem from the inside, as committing one to memory and crafting a performance requires, has a powerful impact on pupil understanding of what a poem is, on their enjoyment of poetry and on their wider confidence.
So, next time you’re teaching a poem, rather than asking pupils to analyse it from the outside, it might be worth considering how you can open a door to let them into it.
Julie Blake is the co-director of Poetry By Heart
The 2024 Poetry By Heart competition launched on 5 October and has an entry deadline of 28 March 2024. Registration, participation and competition resources are free for all schools in England via the website
