Poetry By Heart, the nation’s poetry speaking competition, is open now to all schools and colleges in England. The competition invites children and young people to choose poems they love, to learn them by heart and perform them. Finalists in each region are invited to Shakespeare’s Globe to perform live onstage in a day of celebration with four champions crowned at the end of the day.
Teachers report that participation increases enjoyment of poetry across the whole school.
Last March, eleven of our pupils took part in Poetry By Heart for the first time. The entrants ranged from Year 7 to Year 10 and were a little tentative about taking part when we introduced the competition on National Poetry Day in October 2023, as none of them had done anything like this before. As staff new to the competition, myself and my colleagues, Mrs Turbill and Mr Britten, were also uncertain about how we would go about organising practices; helping the pupils to remember the poems off by heart in addition to delivering the poems; how we would present the showcase event and the logistics of recording the pupils for the competition.
At the beginning, we gave the pupils advice on selecting their poems and which part of the competition they would enter: classic or freestyle, but gave them a lot of autonomy in their choices. Many of them chose to learn 3 poems, two for the classic competition and one for the freestyle, and were told that whichever they performed best, would determine which part of the competition we would send their entries off to.
Having nearly six months from the launch of the competition to the deadline made it so much easier to navigate through organising the pupils and event. The weekly Poetry By Heart Online Forums; the website with all the resources and hints and tips for learning the poems and the competition kit with the handbook and the beautiful posters all combined to make it easy for us to guide and coach our pupils. The pupils were also inspired by the resources on the website and the poetry posters and after we put those up around school, we had a few more pupils ask about the competition and join up.
Whilst the pupils were quite nervous and felt a bit awkward about reading their poems aloud at first, the more practices they attended and time they spent in each other’s company, the easier they found it. They were amazing at encouraging each other with their performances and superb at helping each other to learn the poems by heart and their confidence just blossomed. By the time we did our school showcase event on World Poetry Day in March, the pupils had practised their performances so much that they weren’t as nervous as they expected to be and they thoroughly enjoyed it – delivering their poems with confidence and verve and bringing them to life. Many pupils who were watching in the audience were really impressed and we hope that will result in more pupils wanting to take part this year.
The pupils’ comments revealed their enthusiasm for the competition. One of our Year 7 pupils said that she loved the competition as she loves memorising poetry. Another Year 7 pupil said “It was a very exhilarating experience but also nerve-wracking. Overall it was fantastic and I wouldn’t change a thing.” One of our Year 8 pupils said, “Before I did Poetry By Heart, I didn’t feel confident with speaking out loud in front of a lot of people but now I feel more confident and I enjoyed learning all three of my poems. I am really proud of myself.” Many of the pupils who entered said they enjoyed meeting new people and making new friends and they loved doing something that got them out of their comfort zone, that was a challenge, productive and fun.
As a school, we were lucky enough to get tickets to see the Grand Finale in July 2024 and take all the pupils who took part in the competition. They loved this experience. Taking part in the school event had already boosted their confidence and raised their aspirations, but the Grand Finale gave them even greater ambitions for the competition this year. They had high praise for the performances they watched and one of our Yr10 pupils commented “It was a great opportunity to go and watch the finale, it opened my outlook on how to improve next year.” A sentiment from one of our Yr7 pupils was echoed by many of the others, she said “Before Poetry By Heart, I never knew the amount of community and kinship that comes with poetry… going to see the poetry performances at Shakespeare’s Globe was a time to be remembered.”
The whole experience of taking part in Poetry By Heart for our pupils was really enjoyable and beneficial to them. All of the pupils want to participate again this year and we are hoping to make our showcase event even bigger than last year. We are also all crossing our fingers in the hope that one of our pupil performances gets through to the Grand Finale in 2025.
