Poet Visit
Following a successful visit from our partner school last academic year for a World Book Day author event, Palmers Green High School (PGHS) invited them again to join in an event planned for National Poetry Day. A group of ten Year 5 children from St Paul's attended a poetry performance with all the four junior classes from PGHS and they also took part in a workshop run by a visiting poet. The two Year 5 classes worked together to produce their own poems inspired by the poet's input.
Aims
Evidence continues to show the importance of reading for pleasure for all ages and Palmers Green High School is committed to encouraging their pupils to find the genre or source of literature that will unlock that pleasure. Poetry is another medium for doing this and over the years PGHS has invited poets to help inspire the pupils at different times of the year as well as help celebrate around National Poetry Day. The aim of our partnership with St Paul’s is to provide the opportunity for more children to meet an acclaimed poet or author and additionally for the children from different backgrounds to have the opportunity to work together creatively, sharing ideas and experiences. Success is determined by the level of enthusiasm surrounding the poet’s visit as well as interest in reading more poems and writing more poetry once back in their respective classrooms.
Background
PGHS has a long history of inviting poets and authors into school. An opportunity was identified to enable local schools to also benefit from these visits without incurring extra cost.
The opportunity was identified by the School Librarian at PGHS. St Paul’s had visited on a previous occasion to work with an author and this had been very successful. It is hoped that this project can continue with both schools benefiting from the creative input that a visiting poet (or author) can inspire.
Resources
The project is funded through the PGHS library budget and does not require a contribution from the partner school. Rooms and facilities are provided by the PGHS and the visit is coordinated by the school librarian and a contact (in this case the SENCO) in the partner school. It is important that the appropriate number of staff members can accompany the pupils from the partner school.
Impact
The event has had a positive impact on both schools involved in the event: the partner school commented on the day about how much their pupils had enjoyed the day and seemed inspired to stand up and read out the poems they had produced in the workshops. The poet encouraged the pupils to not only produce their own ideas during the workshop but to discuss their ideas with each other to produce one overall piece of poetry. The working groups had pupils from both schools in them so there was some opportunity to share their ideas with children that they did not know. Many PGHS pupils bought one of the poetry books and they have been frequently borrowed from the school library since the event.
Pupil Involvement
Approximately 80 pupils from Year 3 to Year 6 joined the 10 pupils from the partner school for an interactive performance from poet, Joshua Seigal. Year 5 pupils from both schools then took part in a poetry workshop. In mixed groups of 6 they worked on producing a poem together that used personification and metaphors.
10 Year 5 boys and girls from the partner school were involved in the workshop with 20 girls from PGHS. The pupils from the partner school joined the 80 junior school children form PGHS for the interactive performance.
Frequency
This was a single event that built on a previous relationship with the partner school involving an author visit. It is hoped that the relationship will continue.