Poetry By Heart Competition

This year, to celebrate National Poetry Day and Oracy October, we are launching our 'Poetry by Heart' competition. Poetry by Heart is a national poetry speaking competition that aims to support children in building confidence with poetry alongside developing their oracy and performance skills. 

We hope that many of the children will choose to take part, inspired by our visit from Kate Wakeling, and National Poetry Day, this week. 

To take part, children should learn a poem by heart and practise performing it at home. They will then perform their poetry for each other in their year groups before shortlisting for the Fern Hill Poetry Slam! By the end of the competition, we will have chosen one pupil to represent Fern Hill in the regional Poetry by Heart finals - a very exciting prospect! Although the national competition is for children in Year 3 and above, we would love the younger children to get involved too by learning a poem and sharing it with their teacher. They will also have an opportunity to take part in the Poetry Slam at school.

Pupils must choose a poem from this linked 7 plus anthology. 

There are many poems to choose from, so we have shortlisted some of our favourites: 

Longer length

The Eggshell by Rudyard Kipling

The Land Where The Taffy Birds Grow by Margaret McBride Hoss

Cat-Rap by Grace Nichols

There Was An Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly (Anonymous)

Medium length

What The Fly Thinks by Gertrude Heath

Comet by Kate Wakeling

Fisherman Chant by John Agard

Roger the Dog by Ted Hughes

Popping Corn Song (Anonymous)

Shorter length

Mary Had a Little Lamb

The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay

Bats by Mary Effie Lee Newsom

Snail by Langston Hughers

Children in Years 1 & 2 might like to choose their poem from this list:

For Reception children, the focus is on nursery rhymes, which they can share with their teacher if they would like to learn one at home: Mary had a Little Lamb, Humpty Dumpty, Hickory Dickory Dock, I'm a Little Teapot, Little Miss Muffet.