The Magical Power Of Poetry By Heart

Following the amazing experience of running Poetry By Heart for my Year 9 class in Turing House School and seeing the magical impact that was had on the entire school cohort by James and Joseph performing in the final, I was determined to introduce Poetry By Heart to my new school.

Waldegrave is a state comprehensive girls’ school in Twickenham, Greater London, with a mixed sixth form. Despite being non-selective, it prides itself on improving outcomes for all students.

I persuaded my department heads to run Poetry By Heart across the entire Y9 year group: 220 students across nine classes. In Turing, I had been restricted to just one class – the top set of Y9 – but it felt important to make the experience more inclusive this time. In English lessons at Waldegrave, all classes are mixed ability, so students are not separated in terms of attainment. 

I developed a new scheme of work using Poetry By Heart resources and new ones of my own creation. As a school, we are convinced of the importance of oracy skills, especially to prepare young, ambitious women for leadership roles in business, politics and science. I created a series of lessons that empowered students to learn a poem from the AQA GCSE anthology by heart from the Worlds and Lives collection: ‘A Century Later‘ by Imtiaz Dharker. We know this will become a superpower for our students when they start studying this poem in Y10 for their GCSEs. 

This is how it all worked:

• Class teachers ran the Poetry By Heart scheme of lessons over one week in January.
• Every single student (all 220!) performed a poem in front of their classmates either as a solo or group performer.
• The class teacher selected four students to go forward to the next stage of the competition.
• 36 students performed to the Department Head, head of Y9 and myself and we selected 20 students for the next stage.
• We ran a series of lunchtime rehearsals for our semi-finalists.
• 20 semi-finalists performed at a Y8 assembly in front of the headteacher, associate headteachers, head of Y9 and head of Y8. They inspired the Y8s, who will be extra excited about taking part themselves next year.
• From that assembly, we selected our finalists for the next stage. Our headteacher was so impressed with the quality of the performances and the pure joy of seeing our students empowered to perform in the school hall.
• All the girls’ achievements were celebrated with certificates and an article in the school magazine written by one of the participants. 
• Our six finalists for the group and solo continued to meet at lunchtime with me for biscuits and rehearsals. It became a wonderful supportive environment, with many of the girls developing new friendships with like-minded people.
• We held a celebratory brunch after the experience in the conference room to recognise their achievements and each student was given a handwritten card and certificate. The brunch was also attended by the head of Y9 and the deputy head.

I have been so impressed and inspired by these young women who have worked so hard and been so ambitious in their choice of poems, rejecting my suggestions for short and easy ones and choosing poems like Wilfred Owen’s ‘Exposure‘, Percy Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias‘ and Christina Rossetti’s ‘Cousin Kate‘ instead.

Here’s what our student Coco had to say about the experience:

My poem was Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which I remembered through using the LOCI method (when you use memories and locations to remember something) and repeatedly practising it. Three semi-finalists selected from each Y9 class performed to members of the English department, who assessed us on our voice, accuracy, understanding and presentation. A total of nine soloists and pairs were chosen to perform in a Y8 assembly.

To be honest, I initially felt tremendous trepidation as I stood gazing at a large sea of faces of students, teachers and our headmistress, Ms Tongue! However, my nerves soon evaporated as adrenaline kicked in and it fortunately all went to plan. Afterwards, a few of us were nominated to represent Waldegrave in this national competition. I would definitely recommend this competition to Y8s, as memorising is a great skill for the future, it will challenge you, and the competition’s a lot of fun!

Coco

So many of our students deserve special recognition. We had several finalists from our SEND register who were able to use the positive experience of Poetry By Heart to help them overcome mental health difficulties and tough situations at home.

We would like to say thank you to PBH from the bottom of our hearts. Poetry By Heart has been an inclusive and inspiring experience for so many of our students, empowering them and showing them the power of poetry to help us all still rise above.

‘So we rise, we rise, we rise…’