For Teachers - Poetry Archive

Bring poetry to life in your school!

These pages are specially designed to help you and your students to get the most out of the Poetry Archive. There are lesson plans and activities for all key stages and for the inclusive classroom. Poetry can enrich other areas of the curriculum too; there are ideas here for History teachers, and we will be adding material for other subject areas in the coming months.

This is a growing, developing resource, so come back and visit regularly to see what's new. Our plans include a forum for teachers to discuss their experiences, as well as a space where you will be able to create your own teaching materials and share them with colleagues.

Each of these lessons and activities is built around one of the recordings in the Archive, and is ready for you to print off and use in the classroom.

Some of the poets in the Archive make visits to schools, to work with pupils and teachers. If you're a teacher interested in making this happen in your school, these notes will help you take the first steps.

George Szirtes

Each term, a different poet is in residence here, talking about poetry with anyone who wants to join the conversation. Our current Poet in Residence is the award-winning poet and translator George Szirtes.