There’s a really good energy at our morning and lunch break times, where both children and teachers take part in the activities. So you’ve got to make the most of learning time and it’s important they really get the very best education they can get.įrom being a mum myself to two children, I know that busy children are happy children. And, due to Covid, they’ve been out for nearly a year. Pupils are only in school for a short time – six hours a day for 37 or 38 weeks a year, for five years. We use it to fill time, so every second in school counts. If you’re waiting for something to start, or if you’re in the lunch queue or waiting for the toilet, we’ll recite the poetry. We don’t just recite the poems at break time. (They have also learnt Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and London by William Blake.) How many people do you know that can recite a whole poem from start to finish? I’ve got 11-year-olds that can recite three. Performance poetry builds confidence, it builds knowledge and it’s impressive. These poems are on the GCSE syllabus, so it’s good preparation for the 11 to 16 year olds we teach. Some schools have hymns and some schools have prayers – our school has poetry. Or teachers might lead on the poem and leave a word missing at the end that the students will call out. In September, we all learnt Ozymandias by Percy B Shelley, mainly through call and response between teachers and students. On top of these activities, the children recite poetry. However, it has had such a good impact on the children and school culture that we’ve kept it on.Ī lot of the activities are spontaneous and children-led – we had a bake-off before Easter, for instance, because the students asked for it. We are an inner-city London school so, primarily, we introduced these changes to keep children in separate areas (and stop them from mingling across ‘bubbles’) within the limitations of our building. Instead of playing their own games, such as football, all of the children now take part in quizzes on capital cities or times tables, play Bingo based on school catchphrases and even recite poetry. When schools reopened after lockdown, at Hackney New School, where I have been headteacher since September 2019, we changed our break times.

Myschool games