Launch of The Big Amazing Poetry Project to address findings from new research
CLPE are delighted to announce The Big Amazing Poetry Project, which has been set up together with Macmillan Children’s Books to address new findings from their recent research into Poetry teaching and learning in primary schools. The Project looks to embed poetry fully both into classrooms and also in children’s choices when reading for pleasure.
The survey 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:
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80% of teachers feel poetry is a significant part of a literacy curriculum
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88% say that children enjoy engaging with poetry
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89% reported that children enjoyed listening to it being read or performed
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72% reported that they enjoyed performing it themselves
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61% of teachers have never had development training on poetry
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79% of classroom book corners have fewer than ten poetry books in their book selection
The Big Amazing Poetry Project will deliver professional training to 30 primary school teachers from schools in the UK during the summer school term in 2023, to be held at CLPE’s Literacy Library in London with poets Valerie Bloom and Matt Goodfellow. The training is sponsored by Macmillan Children's Book with each school receiving a free poetry library made up of titles from the MCB list. Free Poetry resources include those of Macmillan Children's Books poets are available on our website .
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, to bring poets into the shadowing schools classrooms. They also have access to free teaching resources for the shortlisted books.
The Chair of Judges for this year’s CLiPPA is Chris Riddell. His illustrations from MCB’s 30th anniversary anthology, The Big Amazing Poetry Book that celebrates 52 weeks with 52 brilliant poets, features across The Big Amazing Poetry Project.