Poetry in the garden centre

Despite being very dependent on successful Christmas play rehearsals, parents visiting to decorate the classroom and various other festive delights, at the end of this week my class are off to visit the local garden centre to share some of our favourite poetry with the customers. It's one of the initiatives in the school's campaign to get the local community more involved with reading, alongside #mydadreads, #mymumreads and various other ideas that the School Reading Council have come up with for the new term.

The plan is that they will work together in pairs to read and perform poetry. They'll be performing some of their own poems, alongside work by a selection of poets they enjoy. Included on the 'to perform' list are Paul Cookson, Liz Brownlee, Michael Rosen, Josh Seigal and Benjamin Zephaniah, although more are being added on a daily basis. We'll hopefully be able to get a few people to stop and have a proper listen. The customer will then be offered a photocopy of the performed poem to take home, along with the name of the collection it's taken from. The garden centre have been really supportive about the idea and have offered us all free refreshments when we visit. If it's successful, the plan is to repeat it in other parts of the village although unfortunately, for some unknown reason, we're not allowed to try it in the village pub.