A couple of weeks ago my class decided that, rather than receiving yet another election leaflet through their letterbox, the residents of the village might prefer to receive a piece of poetry instead.
The children each selected two poems that they really enjoyed, one which they had written themselves and one by a favourite poet. They then wrote them out and added decorations, finally placing them in envelopes, along with details of the school's Twitter account.
The following morning, we walked round the local village posting the poems through random letterboxes. Some of the children were desperate to post them to members of their family, but most of them wanted the surprise of not knowing who was going to receive their poems.
The response from the local community was wonderful. Within a few hours we had received several lovely phone calls and tweets, and a few days later several thank you letters and cards arrived through the post. We also created a Twitter hashtag for it, #PoetryPost.
It was a really simple way to get more poetry out into the community and help build relationships. We've already decided that next year it's going to be a whole school project. We also have a care home just up the road so the children are particularly excited about the prospect of writing some poetry for the residents.
