Pound a Poem 2008

Introduction

Pound a Poem has worked very hard with teachers right from the start of the project to ensure that the event fits in with school life without any additional hassle. We appreciate how busy school life can be and want this project to add to your already creative approach to teaching.

We have created:

suggested approaches for the school to implement the project
a topic web with suggested ideas linked to all curriculum areas
lesson plans to show you how to link some of our ideas from topic web
suggested links to useful web sites for teachers, children and parents

So here are some of the ways you can get things started in your school……

Firstly decide if you are going to plan this as a whole school event or with your individual class
Dedicate a ‘Pound a Poem’ Day to the diary and make this the focus of activities throughout the school.
Use your weekly literacy plan to teach poetry appropriate to your year group and end by producing your Pound a Poem entries
Use the opportunity to plan a creative writing week at school with the last day culminating in teachers selecting six winning poems to enter into the National Competition
Plan a cross curricular half term project using our topic web as a guide
Why not aim to announce your school’s 6 overall winners at your Harvest Assembly. The poems could be displayed, printed in the school newsletter or even sent into the local press
The timing of the project fits perfectly with Harvest Festival, British Food Fortnight (20th September – 5th October), National Poetry Day (9th October) and World Food day (16th October)

You may wish to involve others within your wider community by:

Inviting parents and governors into school to take part in paired writing activities with the children
Asking your governors to help judge the entries
Using local poets to launch the event, motivate children in assemblies and perhaps be involved in judging entries within your school
Linking with your catering providers to support events by promoting healthy eating
Hosting a ‘Poetry Reading’ in the evening with a display representing entries throughout the school

Downloads

Please find below a series of PDF's for you to download. These include the rules of entry, Lesson plans, topic web and a form to submit with your winning entries.

We also include a poster to print out and place around your school, a certificate to present to students taking part.

Files are in PDF format so you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, if you do not have the reader it can be downloaded for free from here.