Introduction

This toolkit has been created by The Poetry Society’s Cloud Chamber, an online network where poets and teachers can meet to share ideas, resources, and best practice.

Many of the poets we work with are experienced workshop facilitators, but we know that everyone has to start somewhere. Designed for emerging poets who are new to working in schools, this toolkit outlines some ways to get started, including advice from experienced poet-facilitators and resources you can explore. Please do also reach out to us for news about opportunities to take part in shadowing schemes and other training.

A Cloud Chamber is a piece of scientific equipment that detects ionising particles by showing the condensation trails, or ‘cloud tracks’, they form when they collide with gaseous mixture in a sealed chamber. It’s a way of bringing to light tiny invisible particles, and tracing what happens when they connect and react. We’re fond of it as a metaphor.

Any practising poet, teacher or youth worker is welcome to join Cloud Chamber. We meet quarterly on Zoom and focus on a different theme each session. In a typical session, an experienced facilitator shares ideas for poetry activities, before opening up to the floor for discussion. Supporting resources created around each theme are freely available to Cloud Chamber members.

In its pilot year, Cloud Chamber is funded by UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, as part of the About Us project, which explores the intersection between the arts and STEM subjects.

About the contributors to this toolkit

We are grateful to Laura Mucha and Cecilia Knapp for sharing their advice here.

Laura Mucha is an award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Her writing has been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world. Her books include Dear Ugly Sisters (winner of the 2021 NSTBA Award for Poetry), Rita’s Rabbit, Being Me (shortlisted for the CLiPPA Poetry Award 2022), and We Need to Talk About Love/Love Factually.

Cecilia Knapp is a poet, playwright and novelist, and Young People’s Laureate for London 2020-21. She won the 2021 Ruth Rendell award and has been shortlisted for the 2022 Forward prize for best single poem, the Rebecca Swift Women’s prize and the Outspoken poetry prize. Her poems have been widely published and anthologised, and her debut collection Peach Pig was published in 2022. She was resident poet at Great Ormond Street Hospital for two years, is lead tutor for the Roundhouse’s prestigious poetry collective, and is an ambassador for mental health charity CALM.

The Poetry Society and Poets in Schools

The Poetry Society runs a programme called Poets in Schools, where schools looking for a poet visit contact us and we match them up with a poet to suit their needs. In addition, we have many other education projects that involve sending poets into schools to deliver poetry workshops. These cover a wide range of ages, topics, and areas of the UK.

Become a Poet in School

When a school or organisation enquires about booking a poet to run a workshop or performance, our Education Team matches them with a suitable local poet. From our list of Poets in Schools, we contact a poet who has experience working with young people of that age, with their needs, and who can deliver work on the themes the school would like to explore.

Our poet educators tend to be freelancers or part-time workers who combine facilitating paid poetry workshops with other projects and jobs; because Poets in Schools work is sporadic, it never makes up the majority of a poet’s income. We send poets into schools across the UK, but because many regional literature development agencies offer their own writers in schools programmes, most of our enquiries come from London and the South East of England, where The Poetry Society is based.

We are always keen to widen our roster of Poets in Schools, but before we place a poet in a school we need to be sure they are confident facilitators with recent experience working with a range of young people. We would expect a Poet in School to:

• Have led at least three young people’s poetry workshops in the past two years, and have at least two references. If there’s a reason why you haven’t been able to run workshops recently, let us know

• Have had some poems published in magazines, anthologies or books in the past two years

• Have performed or read their poems at some events in the past two years

• Have had an Enhanced DBS check in the past two years, be on the DBS update service, or be willing to have an Enhanced

DBS check through The Poetry Society, costing around £63.40 (subject to change)

• Be enthusiastic, adaptable and reliable

• Be a good communicator over email and in person

• Above all, enjoy working with young people If you are interested in becoming a Poet in School and you meet these criteria, email us at educationadmin@poetrysociety.org.uk and we’ll ask for your writer’s CV, references, and for you to complete a survey with more information about you. We will usually schedule an informal interview either in-person or over Zoom.

Please do also check through our general terms of agreement for Poets in Schools visits, included towards the end of this pack.

If you don’t have the experience yet but are interested in developing your facilitation experience, get in touch with us and we can let you know the next time we are able to offer training or shadowing. You may also be interested in becoming a member of The Poetry Society or joining a Stanza, to embed yourself further in the poetry community. Do also check out the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) website for more information and training opportunities. And if you are a children’s writer of colour, consider joining the BookTrust Represents network.

*For advice about insurance, we recommend contacting the Society of Authors and/or NAWE.