Category: Uncategorized
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Poetry workshops for autumn I’m excited to be preparing for the fresh, new school year, and in particular, for this crisp, atmospheric season. Every term and season brings new inspiration for poetry writing, and you can’t beat autumn, with its fiery trees and fascinating leaves, its Halloween shadows and Guy Fawkes Night dazzles, with the…
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This term (summer), I offered a range of themes for my workshops, as usual, but every school chose the same one – Sea and Sand. And no wonder! It’s a wonderful theme – fun, beautiful and refreshing for a hot day, and relevant to the many children will be heading off to the seaside this…
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Children need opportunities to be creative. With the arts as their tools, they can share their fast-growing wealth of thoughts, feelings and experiences, consolidating their learning in the process. Yet, teachers tell me, there’s little room for creativity in today’s curriculum. However often I hear this, it’s always shocks me, though I can see it…
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When children sit down to write a poem, they face many challenges. They have to think what, exactly, they want to say, how they want to start, what words to use, how to arrange them, how to fit them into a few lines, how to make the piece look and sound like a poem (rather…
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Children learn about all sorts of facts and figures through the national curriculum. Then they come to one of my poetry sessions where there are no facts or figures, and fly – no problem. I’m amazed by children. They don’t pester me with ifs or buts; they don’t giggle behind their hands or stare at…
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Welcome back, teachers! How about some sparkly poetry fun to brighten up your wintry classrooms? Once children start dreaming up imagery for an exciting poem, winter gloom disappears and glittering possibilities take over. Ideas ricochet off the walls, are caught, twisted and sent whizzing again, from mind to mind, and by writing time there’s so…
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Hello schools, Apologies for the impersonal, round-robin flyer you’ve probably received from me again, and glad my method hasn’t put you off following the links. My workshops, by contrast, encourage personal expression, and I try to give each child in a group individual support and sharing opportunities. The new academic year always arrives with a…
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If you’re a teacher, you should be clocking out and making your escape now, rather than thinking ahead to next term! But as you’re here, I’ll provide a few details about the poetry sessions I’ll be offering this autumn. My theme choices will be: Streets – with their bustle and noises by day and, for…
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End of year creativity and hooray for high summer! Summer offers an abundance, not only of flowers and produce, but also of creative potential, not least through poetry. With exams over, and requisite boxes ticked, the last weeks of the school year offer a golden opportunity for creative fun with language. Outdoor inspiration For a…
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For teachers: If you’re wondering how to help your less confident writers discover the joys of poetry-crafting, I have some tried-and-tested tactics to offer on The Guardian‘s online Teacher Network page, this week. There’s no single, one-and-only way to get reluctant or hesitant children writing poetry, of course, but I find this general approach effective for…
Kate Williams 