CLPE and Macmillan Children’s Books are together launching The Big Amazing Poetry Project in response to findings from their recent research into Poetry teaching and learning in primary schools.

30 primary school teachers from schools in the UK will receive training at CLPE’s Literacy Library in London. Beyond these 30 schools, all CLPE schools will have access to free poetry resources based on MCB published poems and poets.

The initiative marks 30 years of MCB’s award-winning poetry list for children and CLPE’s work as the National Poetry Centre for Primary Schools. The Project looks to embed poetry fully both into classrooms and also in children’s choices when reading for pleasure.

The poetry focused research was carried out with primary school teachers predominantly based in the UK in January 2023 to find out more about their experience of teaching poetry, including their attitudes to it, how much they know about poets and anthologies and how it is incorporated into a teaching day. This is the first major research solely focused on poetry in primary schools published since Poetry in Schools (Ofsted, 2007).

The results revealed:

• 80% of teachers feel poetry is a significant part of a literacy curriculum
• 88% say that children enjoy engaging with poetry
• 89% reported that children enjoyed listening to it being read or performed
• 72% reported that they enjoyed performing it themselves
• 61% of teachers have never had development training on poetry
• 79% of classroom book corners have fewer than ten poetry books in their book selection

Poetry provides the gateway for many young readers and writers in their journey towards becoming literate. Previous research carried out by CLPE shows that it is a crucial genre for bridging the most prominent gaps for pupils and helps to level up literacy education. It supports understanding language and vocabulary, reading fluency, inference and deduction, and the ability to respond to and decode texts. Its short form also offers access to those pupils who find reading for pleasure something that doesn’t come easily to them.

There is great enthusiasm for including poetry in the classroom; teachers indicate that both they and their pupils enjoy the experience of reading and hearing poetry read, and many also enjoy performing it themselves. But, there is also little or no training available for teachers to develop a best practice for teaching poetry and there is low awareness of poets and new poetry publications that are likely to appeal to children today. Most teachers plan their own units of poetry, but the survey shows that poetry is read aloud less than once a week in 93% of schools.

The results from the survey showed that teachers’ knowledge of children’s poets has not significantly developed since the results reported in Teachers as Readers (Cremin et al, 2007.) The best known poets to primary school teachers in 2023 are Michael Rosen, Benjamin Zephaniah and Joseph Coelho, the current Waterstones Children’s Laureate. When teachers were asked to name any poems for children that they could recall, only 9 poems received over 20 mentions and the most recent of these poems was ‘Talking Turkeys’ by Benjamin Zephaniah, published in 1994. The most well-known poem was ‘Chocolate Cake’ by Michael Rosen (1985).

The Big Amazing Poetry Project professional training will take place during the summer school term in 2023. The training will be held at CLPE’s Literacy Library in London and poets Valerie Bloom and Matt Goodfellow will also take a lead in the course. The training is sponsored by MCB and each school will receive a free poetry library made up of books from the MCB list to help them to create a physical and joyful space for poetry for their pupils.

The project culminates in July with the CLiPPA (the Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award). This is the only award for published children’s poetry in the UK and celebrates its 20th year in 2023. The Schools Shadowing Scheme that runs alongside welcomes schools across the UK, with this year’s programme including an exclusive online shortlist event on 3 May, to bring poets into the shadowing schools’ classrooms. They also have access to free teaching resources for the shortlisted books.

Louise Johns-Shepherd, Chief Executive of CLPE, said, ‘At CLPE we have been championing the importance of poetry for fifty years. This research report shows just how important our poetry work with primary schools is. Children love poetry, it is the gateway to literacy for so many young readers and writers and the research highlights the real need for teacher training, access to poetry books and the impact of working with real life poets. We are delighted to be working alongside Macmillan Children’s Books to bring The Big Amazing Poetry Project to so many schools and to be able to give teachers the knowledge, the tools and the books to help their children discover all the wonders of poetry.’

Matt Goodfellow, CLiPPA Shortlisted Poet and course leader on The Big Amazing Poetry Project, said, ‘It’s always exciting working with teachers to increase confidence and awareness of what poetry can offer young people in helping them to articulate thought and feelings. When exposed on a daily basis to poetry, children begin to understand that poets play with thoughts, feelings and ideas in their own unique voice – and it’s something they can also do too.’

Gaby Morgan, Associate Publisher at Macmillan Children’s Books said, ‘Poetry for children has been at the heart of our publishing for thirty years; it is an important step in a child’s reading journey and helps them to understand the world around them. Our partnership with the team at CLPE brings together our combined passions for poetry and through this initiative we can help ensure that poetry reaches children in an enjoyable and accessible way. The Big Amazing Poetry Project will support building both a love of poetry and confident readers for the future.’