Introduction

This toolkit has been created by The Poetry Society’s Cloud Chamber, an online network where poets and teachers meet to share ideas, resources, and best practice. Designed for teachers who would like to invite a poet into their school or use more poetry in the classroom, the toolkit offers advice about booking a poet visit and signposts resources.

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.

The Poetry Society and Poets in Schools

The Poetry Society runs a programme called Poets in Schools, a paid service where schools looking for a poet visit approach us and we match them up with an experienced poet-facilitator to suit their needs. In addition, we have many other education projects in which poets deliver poetry workshops in schools. These cover a wide range of ages, topics, and areas of the UK. More information about what a poet visit could entail is included on the next page. To enquire about booking, see here.

Embedding poetry in your own practice

We know not all schools can afford a visit from a professional poet. At The Poetry Society we’re committed to helping you champion poetry within your own teaching practice.

If you work in a primary school, check out Poetry Train, a collection of activities and advice for teaching poetry. We’re currently creating a similar resource for secondary schools, so please stay in touch to get your hands on a copy. The ‘Resources’ page of this toolkit contains links to more poetry lesson plans and activity worksheets that are freely available to download.

A big part of celebrating poetry in schools is normalising it outside the English classroom. You might incorporate it into assemblies, encourage colleagues teaching other subjects to include a poem in their lessons, or display poems on posters or the school website. You could even have a poem of the week!

School members of The Poetry Society receive packs of poem posters. Later in this toolkit we outline some arguments around the value of poetry to help you make the case for it in your school.