Win a Paul Cookson poetry workshop!

By Helen Watts, Editor, Literacy Time PLUS

It’s National Poetry Day – and what better time could there be to announce our Literacy Time PLUS Performance Poetry Competition. This could be your school’s chance to win a full day’s workshop with top performance poet, Paul Cookson.

Paul Cookson – Appearing soon in your school?

In the first ever Literacy Time PLUS poetry competition, schools all over the UK are being invited to create and submit their very own collection of performance poems – and the more interesting the presentation, the better!

Entries must comprise of a written anthology accompanied by an audio recording of the children performing their poems. Illustrations, photographs or a digital film recording of the performance can also be included.

One entry per school will be accepted, and teachers should also include a 200-word introduction describing the school and how the anthology was put together.

Children of all ages can get involved and contribute poems to one whole-school entry – so submitted poetry collections should contain work by children right across the school, in different age groups. The emphasis will be on originality, performance and – most importantly – having fun!

The top prize includes a day’s visit to the winning school by performance poet Paul Cookson – who is also Literacy Time PLUS’ Poet-in-residence and who will be chairing the judging panel. Two runner-up prizes will also be awarded. Winners will be announced in the July 2009 issues of Literacy Time PLUS and on the Literacy Time PLUS website, along with details of the runners up.

It’s all about having a go … and having fun!

“We want to see evidence of children joining in, writing about things they enjoy and know best, and hopefully having lots of laughs along the way.”

“This is the first major competition that we have run here at Literacy Time PLUS,” explains Editor, Helen Watts. “And I am very pleased that it involves encouraging children of all ages to work together and to have a go at writing and performing poetry. We are not looking for great works of accomplished writing – we want to see evidence of children joining in, writing about things they enjoy and know best, and hopefully having lots of laughs along the way.”

Paul Cookson is excited about the competition. “I’m delighted to be involved in this unique project. It’s a great opportunity for the whole school to get involved. I know that there is a lot of young talent out there; I see this every time I visit schools throughout the country. I am really looking forward to seeing the entries that we get for this competition and I know that it will be a really difficult job to decide on a winner!”

Push for poetry

The announcement of a Literacy Time PLUS Performance Poetry Competition comes at a time when poetry is very much in the news. The need for more effective poetry lessons, ‘with well-chosen activities’ was highlighted in the Ofsted report, Poetry in Schools (2006/07), which found that ‘children in primary schools, in particular, enthused about opportunities to read aloud and perform poems to a larger audience’.

Endorsing these findings, a recent summit concerning children’s poetry – attended by key organisations, including the National Literacy Trust, Poetry Book Society and the Children Poet Laureate, Michael Rosen – stressed the cultural and educational importance of poetry and the need to look for ways to enhance its profile in the UK.

Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust commented, “Poetry is a vibrant and engaging experience of literacy which all children deserve to experience. Recent research has indicated that many children miss out on poetry in the classroom. Resources which promote poetry are therefore vital in bringing alive a love of poetry in a new generation.”