Established in 2013, Poetry By Heart, the national poetry speaking competition, is open to all schools and colleges in England. It challenges young people from 8 – 18 to choose a poem they love, learn it by heart and perform it for others out loud. Over 1,600 schools were involved in the competition in 2024 with the national champions chosen in a day of celebration at Shakespeare’s Globe, London. Teacher Katie Steiner of St Josephs Primary School, Hereford describes their approach to the competition and the excitement of having a finalist go to the Globe!

I remember telling my headteacher, moments after I had received the email to say that one of our Year 6 children was a finalist in the national Poetry by Heart competition, that this was “an absolute career highlight for me.” I really meant that. As English lead, I love words and language and performance and the reality of the reward for Amelie’s hard work and natural talent felt incredibly moving to me; knowing that she would get to stand on the stage at Shakespeare’s Globe and deliver her poem with the passion and guts I’d seen her do it with in my classroom made me well up.

I decided to take part in Poetry by Heart for the first time last year and am so pleased that I did! am always keen to find ways to bring words and texts to life for our pupils and so Poetry by Heart felt right up my street. It felt like a chance to take poetry off the page and invite the children to live and breathe it a little – to see how it felt and tasted in their mouths and to experiment with trying to get others to feel something in response.

Since it was our first year of involvement with the competition, I made the decision to start relatively small, with the hope and plan of gradually increasing the profile and significance of the event within our school calendar over the coming years. A small group of nine children from Years 5 and 6 worked with me to select poems that they loved and felt a connection to, and we began the process of learning them by heart.

We selected a date for our in-school performance and invited families and staff to come along and hear our poems. This was such a lovely opportunity for the children to support and encourage one another and to build their confidence for performing something by themselves; our children are relatively used to being on stage as part of the cast of a play or musical but it’s quite a different thing to stand alone and deliver a (sometimes lengthy!) chunk of text all by yourself! It felt vulnerable and nerve-wracking to be a part of that performance myself, but also exhilarating and empowering to hold the listeners in the palm of your hand like that. The children were all buzzing afterwards!

Recording and uploading our videos was straightforward and very well supported by the information and advice on the PBH website. It was especially exciting for the children to know that every one of them would receive personal feedback on their performances and this was something that had particularly impressed and appealed to me when first looking into the possibility of taking part in the competition. It certainly makes the work and effort feel valued and acknowledged and provides real, useful pointers for next time.

We awaited the announcement day with great anticipation at St. Joseph’s. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Amelie had been chosen – her poem performance was breath-taking – but I was absolutely thrilled for her and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity it would give her. When I told her, she was genuinely speechless for a few seconds.

Of course, there were tears of pride at the Grand Finale at The Globe. It really felt like the gilding of my “career highlight” to sit in the audience and watch Amelie perform her poem – ‘The End’ by Mark Strand. It was a dark choice for an eleven- year-old, but one that somehow felt more meaningful coming out of such a young mouth.

The whole day was an absolute delight from beginning to end. The rich variety in all the finalists’ performances was staggering and the truth with which even the youngest children delivered their poems was beautiful. We were incredibly well looked after throughout, and the slick organisation was top-notch.

It was something very special indeed to spend a day surrounded by poetry and people who believe in what poetry can be. Amelie will carry the memory of that day with her for the rest of her life, I am certain. And so will I.

If you are wondering whether or not to sign up to take part in this incredible competition, take this as a heartfelt push.

Poetry By Heart is open now. Registration and participation are free and the team are always available to provide help and support. Find out more.

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