Poetry in Motion Schools: Free Literary Programme

Poetry in Motion Schools is Community Arts Partnership’s innovative literary programme for primary, secondary, grammar and special schools. Supported by principal funder the Arts Council of Northern Ireland with additional funding from Belfast City Council, this successful programme is now in its eleventh year.

Since 2001 more than 10,000 students have taken part in this project, and over 1,850 poems have been published. Poetry in Motion for Schools aims to develop the creative abilities of young people and enable their poetic voice through language and image.  We achieve this through workshops conducted in schools by published/producing poets most of whom have a wealth of experience in working with young people, helping to foster creativity. Schools that have taken part in this project see it as an enriching experience for both pupils and teachers and find that it also forges many links with the curriculum. Click here to see highlights from 2012-2013 Anthology launch at the Waterfront Hall.

We reach out across the whole of Northern Ireland and look forward to welcoming schools from across the region to participate in this year’s programme.

The project will focus on both the writing and the performance of the work created by the participants. Students’ poems will be audio-recorded by a technician and collected in an audio anthology and a book.

Schools are invited to participate in the next programme by returning the application form which can be found by clicking here: CONFIRMATION OF INTEREST.  Places are limited to thirty schools.  In order to avail of this opportunity, we advise that you return the form as soon as possible.  In previous years demand has been so high that we could have run the programme twice over had the funding been available to do so. The final closing date is 17th June 2013 at 5pm (N.B EXTENDED DEADLINE)

Each school will receive six hours of workshop facilitation. We would advise that this is best allocated to one class. There is no cost to the school for the provision of facilitation on this programme.

Key information

Dates: Classroom workshops: September and October 2013 (during first half of the Autumn term)

Location: Primary, post-primary and special schools across N. Ireland

Poets: Local poets selected on the basis of personal knowledge of them and their work.

Preparation: Community Arts Partnership will organise teachers’ workshops at their offices in Commercial Court in Belfast and at a venue in Omagh, to offer a better understanding of the processes involved and meet their respective poets. Schools will make mutually convenient arrangements with their appointed poets and to plan for future workshops.  These teachers’ meetings will take place in the first week of September

As paperwork and information regarding the process are disseminated during these inductions, it is essential that class teachers and/or literacy co-ordinators are present at this event.  The date of the induction will be confirmed upon receipt of your application form. Please indicate whether you wish to attend the meeting in Belfast or Omagh.

Programme stages:

• Workshops – Short term poet residencies (6 hours in each school, with regular contact with teachers to more specifically develop poetry to embrace classroom based activity), where the young people will be facilitated in both the conceptualisation of their poetry, the writing and the performance of their work.  Each school should then email the poems to Chelley McLear, the project co-ordinator.

• Recordings – We will ask the schools to assist in the recording of the young people reciting their poetry, a technician will visit each school, upon completion of the workshop process, to facilitate the recording.

• Publishing – Schools are requested to submit word documents containing the text for all the poems submitted for consideration. When all schools have made the submissions and all the audio recordings are complete, we will select and edit the output to produce an audio anthology and book. These will be available free of charge to those contributors selected for publication. Additional copies may be made available through Community Arts Partnership and a range of other outlets that carry our poetry output year after year.

NB: Publication launch:

 The publication launch will take place in the week commencing Monday 24th March 2014.  It is an essential condition of participation that the participating classes attend this event.

Themes:  Participants will have the opportunity to create poetry about their lives, their identity, culture, places and people that they know and love.