Messages – A National Poetry Day Poetry Book
This teaching resource has been developed to support the use of the ebook, Messages – A
National Poetry Day Book in schools. The book was produced by Macmillan to mark the
celebration of National Poetry Day 2016.
The ideas suggested will support a whole school celebration of poetry on National Poetry Day as
well as enhancing existing routines and practices to ensure that poetry is an embedded and
meaningful feature in the everyday life of the school.
Making Poetry a Part of School Life - Preparation for National Poetry Day and beyond
Prior to the National Poetry Day event:
 Consider creating a special class, library or school display of poetry texts. These may be
books and anthologies that share the theme of messages or alternatively could be a
display to showcase the best of the poetry stock you have. This display could be
maintained over the course of the year and routinely changed to showcase particular
poets or illustrate how poetry can support key themes that will be of significance at
different stages of the academic year.

If it is not presently a part of your established class routine, consider incorporating daily or
weekly sharing of poetry with your pupils. The sharing could take the form of children
sharing and performing poems they have discovered or enjoy, it could involve the teacher
performing a poem and providing an opportunity to discuss its appeal or it could involve
playing video clips (e.g. from www.poetryline.org.uk) so children have the opportunity to
hear the poems performed by the poets themselves. This practice could be extended to
form the basis of regular assemblies.

You could invite poets into school to conduct workshops that enable children to deepen
their appreciation of poetry and the process involved in composing poems. Consider
extending the benefits of such workshops and make this a more longstanding feature of
your provision by inviting a poet to be a poet in residence. As a part of the residency a
poet can work in collaboration with the staff and school community to raise the profile of
poetry in fun and engaging ways.

You could run a staff meeting introducing staff to ways of exploring poetry. Using The
Glassblower Dances by Rachel McCrum as an example first read the poem to the staff and
invite their initial responses. What do they like about it? What don’t they like? Are there
any words or phrases which particularly stuck out to them? Does it remind them of
anything? You could use the booktalk grid available here
https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/resources/key-teaching-approaches/respondingpoetry to support their discussions.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Provide the teachers with paper and drawing materials (pastels, felt tips, pencil crayons),
read the poem again and this time invite them to draw the images that come to them as
they listen. This might take the form of a single picture or several smaller ones. Invite
colleagues to share and discuss their images with each other. What do they notice?
Encourage them to reflect on how doing this drawing activity changed the way they heard
the poem. What did they notice in each other’s images? Did they discover anything new?
What might this offer for children encountering a poem for the first time?
Finally, hand copies of the poem out and read it again, did they hear anything new on this
third reading? Has anything changed for them? Invite them to annotate their images with
any memorable phrases for them. Stick the images with their quotes up to create a
makeshift display. How could this be used in classroom practice? What impact did not
seeing the text before having heard it have on your experience of reading the poem
independently? What impact would this have in the classroom?
Spend some time discussing the process of exploring a poem in this way. How did they
feel? Is it similar to the way they work with poetry in their classrooms? Discuss
opportunities for sharing and responding to poems in school. Are the children given
opportunities to respond as readers to poetry or is poetry used only as a template for
children’s writing? You might want to share and invite staff to respond to this quote from
the Ofsted Review of English 2005:
‘A poem is mined for its use of adjectives, metaphors and contrasting short and long
sentences without attempting to engage pupils’ personal response to the ideas and
feelings it expresses. The text becomes a kind of manual rather than an opportunity for
personal response to experience.’
Discuss ways in which sharing and responding to poetry could be integrated into classroom
routines. If you would like to explore this issue in more detail you might also want to
review Ofsted’s 2007 publication Poetry in schools: A survey of practice, 2006/07
http://bit.ly/2cBUrXF.
Invite staff to share their favourite collections or other places they source poetry from. You
might also want to share with them websites where they can find appropriate poems for
their children including www.poetryline.org.uk.

For more ideas and suggestions you can download our free publication: Poetry in Primary
Schools, What We Know Works. www.clpe.org.uk This resource provides a set of simple
suggestions for engaging children with poetry, for more in depth teaching sequences
studying a range of poetry books and collections as well as videos of poets and examples
of work from schools, please visit www.poetryline.org.uk.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Launching National Poetry Day
In preparation for the school’s celebrations of National Poetry Day you might want to download
posters and other materials from the National Poetry Day website,
http://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/wp/education/free-education-resource-downloads/. You could
launch the celebrations by hosting a whole school assembly inspired by this year’s theme,
Messages.
Part 1
Explain to the children that the first Thursday in October (this year 6th October) marks a special
day in the calendar. Invite them to consider what poetry is and why it might be considered
important to have a day that is especially dedicated to it. Explain that as part of the school’s
recognition of its importance there will be a range of activities happening over the course of the
week to mark this special time.
Part 2
Explain that the theme of National Poetry Day in 2016 is Messages. Explore what a message is. Ask
the children to suggest all the different types of messages that they can think of. Encourage them
to consider their day to day routines and how they send and receive messages to and from people
they know, to and from school etc. Draw their attention to messages within the school
environment especially if there are signs or notices in the hall. Encourage the children to think as
widely as they can and note their ideas on a flip chart.
Share Matt Goodfellow’s poem from the collection whilst playing the accompanying slideshow
from https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/resources/teaching-sequences/messages. Once shared,
allow the children time to discuss with the person next to them whether or not they liked the
poem, what parts of the poem were most memorable and why and how it made them feel. Ask
them to consider what the grey might be and why they think this, what clues does the poem give?
Open the discussion to the entire group and take responses. You might want to repeat this
reading/discussion routine so the children have a chance to hear the language of the poem more
than once.
Invite the children to work together to come up with a new line for this poem, drawing on their
earlier ideas about what messages are. Note their suggestions to create a school poem with the
same name which can be displayed in the reception area over the course of the week.
Part 3
Explain that over the course of the next week, they will be discovering poems that explore the
theme of messages. You might also want to introduce the way that the children can pass messages
in poetry form to each other. Sally Crabtree, one of the contributors to the anthology, is becoming
a Poetry Postie. You might want to replicate this by creating a school messaging system or
challenge the children to design one. Invite the children to seek out and collect poems inspired by
the theme of messages. These could be collected and shared in a future whole school assembly or
in displays or anthologies around the school.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Part 4
Host a celebratory whole school assembly in which the highlights of work from across the school
can be shared and showcased. This can be presented through individual and class performances,
video or audio recordings and exhibiting work produced.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Using the anthology – exploring the poems.
Each poet in this anthology has written a poem on the theme of messages. They have written a
short paragraph about why or how they wrote the poem. They have also all chosen a poem from
another poet that shares either a similar theme to their poem or speaks to the wider theme of
messages and explained why they have chosen it. The explanations the poets have written can be
used to support discussions about how choices regarding language and form are made and the
reasons for likes, dislikes and preferences for different poems. Encourage the children to draw
comparisons with other poems that they know and model how to do this by sharing poems that
you like with similar messages/themes alongside the ones suggested in these activities.
Not all of the poems in the anthology are suitable for primary aged children, however we have
picked the most suitable for each phase around three themes. Each theme has a focus on a
particular phase with further suggestions on how to follow this theme with children across the
other phases. The teaching ideas will help you to use the poems with your children. However,
you could follow the same structure or use these approaches with other poems in the anthology –
perhaps picking your class favourites following the whole school assembly. In our teaching
opportunities we have assumed that the poems would be studied over the course of three or four
lessons – but you can expand or contract this to suit your class and their abilities and interests. For
each section we have suggested a teacher read from the anthology. The teacher poems are not
suitable for a primary audience but share similar themes and will support your thinking around the
same issues. There are short suggestions for discussion with colleagues around the selected
poems.
The resource also references further opportunities to expand each section using poems from
CLPE’s Poetryline website. Where this site is mentioned unless a specific link is provided visit
www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline where you can search by poem, poet or theme to find the additional
content you need.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Focus Key Stage
Theme
Early Years
Say it with a poem
In the introduction to the anthology Susannah Herbert, the coordinator of
National Poetry Day, explains that the hope for this National Poetry Day is that
people will “put away dull prosaic ways of expressing something that really
matters and say it with a poem”. These teaching ideas will support children in
exploring how messages are communicated through poetry and encourage
them to have a go themselves.
Early Years: Just the Messenger by Joseph Coelho
Poems
KS1: Written in the World by Jan Dean and Mirror by Rachel Rooney
KS2: Note to Self by Michaela Morgan
Teacher Read: Sorry by Joshua Seigal
Lead activity: Early Years and Foundation Stage



Prior to the session
Prior to the session gather together rhymes and songs that act as instructions. These might include
but aren’t limited to: Dance to your Daddy, Hush a bye baby, Pat-a-cake pat-a-cake Baker’s man,
One two Buckle my Shoe, Jack be nimble, Rain, Rain go away, Polly Put the Kettle On etc. You
might also have some established instruction songs in the classroom such as “make a circle” to the
tune of Frère Jacques.
Share some of these rhymes with the children and explore adding actions or props to make their
meanings clear.

Exploring Joseph’s Poem
Invite two members of staff to perform the poem for the children, inviting them to pass the
messages in the poem. Once you have had several turns at this invite the children to take on the
roles of mother and father too. Discuss how each of the characters might be feeling and practise
the lines using different tones of voice to echo these emotions.
Ask the children what instructions they might need to share in the classroom. Model how to write
these in the same format as the poem, for example Tell the children to share the bikes. Display
these lines around the classroom in the relevant areas and invite the children to move around the
room performing the instructions.
Work with the children to display the other instruction rhymes that you know in the right parts of
the classroom. Invite the children to share any others that they know.
You might also want to share Michael Rosen’s Don’t from Mustard, Custard, Grumble Belly and
Gravy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaq3gzswei0 encouraging the children to chime in and
finish the instructions.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Suggestions for Continuous Provision:
Reading Area:
 Display the poems and rhymes you have found for the children to sing, read and have read to
them. Send these home to allow the children to share and re-read at home.
 Make audio versions of poems, rhymes and songs available for the children to listen to whilst
tuning in to print.
Mark making/ writing:
 Make paper sign templates or post-its available in all parts of the provision for children to
write instructions.
 Create a messaging centre giving each child a post-box using envelopes, shoeboxes or shoe
racks with their photographs on them. Encourage the children to write messages or rhymes to
each other.
 Place notepads to take messages by toy telephones in the role-play area.
Small world play:
 Work with the children to create poem bags or boxes with key props to help them act out the
poems, rhymes or songs.
Role-play:
 Provide toy phones so the children can recreate the message passing in Joseph’s poem.
 Work with the children to create a message centre of their choosing, it might be a post office
or sign making workshop
 Place relevant instruction poems with the children’s play equipment, Pat-a-cake with the
cooking things, Polly put the Kettle On in the kitchen, Rain, Rain Go Away with the
waterproofs.
Following the theme in KS1:
Invite the children to share what the last message they sent/received was and what form it took.
You could create a table of these. You might want to bring in some examples or share examples
already in the classroom to support the children to think beyond the obvious – notices, school
newsletters, adverts/posters, greetings/postcards, lists.
Review the table. Invite the children to consider what the purposes of the messages listed are,
note these in a third column on the table. Using shared writing work with the children to create a
definition of a message.
Read Written in the World by Jan Dean a couple of times. Give the children a chance to discuss
their initial responses with each other and share with the class. Invite the children to listen to the
poem one more time and to discuss what they like or dislike about the poem, what questions they
might have and what connections they might make. What messages are in the poem? Who left
them? Who are they for? Can everybody see them?
Invite the children to change their definition if they feel it’s necessary. If the children begin to
discuss hidden messages you might also want to share Rachel Rooney’s poem Mirror from the
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
anthology and Kathy Henderson’s Today I read a bus stop from The Dragon with a Big Nose on
Poetryline.
Give the children the opportunity to look for possible hidden messages in the environment. You
might want to share the slideshow for Messages that is referred to in the assembly section of this
pack to support their thinking. Provide them with cameras to record what they find. Display the
images they come back with.
Discuss with the children the specific qualities of what they have found, are they beautiful, hard,
soft? Draw the children’s attention back to the poem, the blossom being picked to represent
beauty, the rivers for journey and the sky for change. Through shared writing model creating a
poem using the starter I left you a message…. Invite the children to create their own poem
describing the messages they think are hidden in the environment. Display these poems alongside
the pictures or laminate them and display them in the environment where the picture was taken
to create a poetry installation.
Following the theme in KS2:
Invite the children to share what the last message they sent/received was and what form it took.
You could create a table of these. You might want to bring in some examples or share examples
already in the classroom to support the children to think beyond the obvious – notices, school
newsletters, adverts/posters, greetings/postcards, lists.
Consider the audience for the message types that have been suggested. Reflect on the types of
messages that you might make for yourself. What types of messages are these? Create a list of
examples. Discuss what purpose these messages serve. Explain that in Scotland the word Message
also means ‘shopping’ or ‘errands’. Discuss how appropriate this meaning feels in relation to your
earlier discussions. Do all messages help us remember?
Share Michaela Morgan’s poem Note to self with the children a couple of times. Invite the children
to reflect on the poem, what they like, dislike and any questions they have. Consider what the
messages are within the poem. What does the author want the reader to remember?
Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4 and distribute the poem giving each group 2 stanzas each.
Invite the children to consider how they would perform the stanzas they have been given. Are
there appropriate actions? Should there be more than one voice? What is the tone of the poem?
How should the words be spoken? Give the groups time to rehearse and then play back the two
versions of the poem.
Discuss what the children noticed as they were preparing, performing and watching – have their
opinions changed about the poem? How does the author feel about shopping? What is the most
important part of the trip?
You might also discuss the rhyme scheme in the poem. Rhyme helps us remember things by
grouping them together. Talk about the use of the alternate lines which form the list in the poem,
how does that support the structure? Discuss with the children poems or rhymes they remember
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
from when they were younger. What has helped them to remember these? You might consider
repetition, humour, a character etc. If you have a copy of Pat Hutchins’ Don’t forget the bacon in
school you might want to extend the investigation by seeing how rhyme can sometimes be
problematic.
Discuss with the children what they would like to remember at the moment. Invite them to think
about what structure might be appropriate. Which other strategies might they use to make it
memorable? Once the children have drafted their poems invite them to choose the most
appropriate way to publish them Display the completed poems alongside Michaela’s.
Following the theme: Teacher Read
Invite colleagues to read the poem and share their likes and dislikes. Did these stay consistent
throughout? Did the poem remind them of others they have read?
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Focus Key Stage
Theme
Poems
KS1
Poems that speak to you
In her introduction to her poem Sally Crabtree describes poetry as a form of
Chinese Whispers, changing when it’s read by the reader. Some poems are
addressed to the reader and speak to you in that way and others chime with
our experiences or emotions in a particular moment. In these suggestions both
will be considered.
KS1: What you might write by Deborah Alma
Early Years: Oranges and Lemons
KS2: Written in the World by Michaela Morgan
Teacher Read: Chinese Whispers by Sally Crabtree
Lead Activity: KS1
Prior to the session:
 Gather examples of concrete poems to share with the children.
 Gather examples of picture books which demonstrate different views of home such as
Window by Jeannie Baker, Black Dog by Levi Pinfold, A Place to Call Home by Alexis Deacon
and Viviane Schwarz and Grandad’s Island by Benji Davies.
 Invite the children to find and bring in poems, rhymes and songs about home that they
already know, share these with the whole class and display these alongside the books so
the children can browse.
 Invite the children to bring in photographs of their houses and the view from their window.
Share the poem What you might write with the children several times (you might want to use it as
an incidental poem in the days running up to doing this sequence of activity). On a final reading
provide the children with drawing materials and paper. Invite them to draw what they can see in
the poem. Give the children the opportunity to be flexible in this task, choosing to create a single
image or several and offer them a choice of drawing media to create the mood. Once the images
are finished conduct a gallery walk where children stick their drawings around the room and have
the opportunity to observe and reflect each other’s pictures. Give them the opportunity to leave
post-it messages on drawings they particularly like. Following the gallery walk invite them to
discuss the different interpretations of the poem they have created. Ask them to tell you what
mood they feel the poem has and how the reading and drawing have made them feel.
Share the first stanza of the poem, this time inviting the children to visualise their own houses.
Invite them to describe their houses to a partner and for their partner to draw it. Discuss what
details were important when they were describing their house. Invite the children to draw their
own outline of their houses and fill them with their descriptions. You could extend this into a
poem by inviting the children to pick their favourite four descriptions and alternate them with
single words that describe how they feel about being at home. For example:
Made from orange brick
Warm
White front door
Safe
Etc.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Share stanza 2 with the children. You might want to share some images of views from windows or
if they have brought in pictures these can be used as stimulus. Invite them to draw the view from
a window in their house adding as much detail as possible. Offer them a choice of media so they
can capture the view how they see it. Invite the children to share what they have drawn with a
partner or small group giving each child time to describe what they have drawn, encourage the
listeners to ask questions about what they can see. Once they have all had a chance to describe
their picture give the children a strip of paper to capture a sentence about the view from their
window.
Share stanzas 2 and 3. You might spend some time discussing who might be walking past their
houses at different times of day – postal workers, street cleaners, families walking to school,
people coming home from work etc. You could make a street drama with half the class pretending
to look through windows and the other half walking along the street doing a job or task. Run the
drama twice so the children play both roles. On a separate piece of paper to their window scene
invite the children to sketch some of the people who might be walking past their house. Invite
them to pick a favourite, they might want to redraw it, and cut it out and stick it onto their scene.
As before allow the children to discuss what they have drawn, this time focussing on the person
they can see and on another strip of paper invite the children to describe the people from their
scene. As a group invite each table to order the sentences they have written however they choose
to form a group poem called: The View from Our Windows. Once they have ordered their strips
they can be stuck down and a class poem can be created and displayed alongside their pictures.
Share stanza 4 with the children. Discuss who the children like having to visit and who they would
like to sit with them at home. Provide them with a postcard and invite them to write a note to that
person.
You might give the children a chance at the end of this sequence of activities to write a poem in
any form they choose either about their house or about another element of the sequence that has
interested them. You might also want to share Our Flat by Michael Rosen from Michael Rosen’s
Big Book of Bad Things which can be found on Poetryline. These poems could then be published in
a class anthology.
Following the theme: Early Years Foundation Stage
Play the children the sound of church bells https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjQpbC2G9BA
Discuss with the children what type of sound this is, consider tone and dynamic. What is this
sound for?
Sing the rhyme Oranges and Lemons to the class, and invite the children to join in if they know it.
Provide the children with small bells or tambourines. As a call and response invite them to play
back the question on their bells for each of the churches and repeat the “Say the bells…” line after
you. Practise this several times as a whole group.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
You could move on to exploring how far away the children can be from you and still hear the
question by going to an open space and inviting the children to stand still when they can no longer
hear your bells. Work with the children to record this experiment, invite them to decide what and
how they want to record it. You might want to show them how far apart the church towers are on
this map https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?msa=0&ie=UTF&mid=1lZcgpb1nkNr1QG5C9kFL6Qo4jc.
You could go on to explore which other bells give messages, servants, fire station, school,
doorbells, sleighbells etc and invent questions that each of these bells could be asking to create a
collaborative poem through shared writing. These do not have to be rhyming couplets as in the
poem. The bells and their questions can then be put on display in the classroom.
Following the theme: KS2
Share the poem Written in the World with the children several times so they begin to be familiar
with it.
In groups provide them with copies of the poem and invite them to discuss their responses to the
poem using the responding to poetry grid on this page of the Poetryline website.
https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/resources/key-teaching-approaches/responding-poetry Invite
the groups to feedback and note their responses on a shared grid.
If they have not already discussed it invite the children to consider who the narrator of this poem
might be and why. Why might the poet have picked this voice? What or who is giving the
message? Who is the ‘you’ in the poem? What makes you think that? Why has the poet chosen to
make the poem direct? How would it have been different if it had been written in a less direct
manner- you could explore rewriting one of the stanzas as a group giving it a different perspective.
Invite the children to work in pairs to give a tour of the school or ideally an outside space
explaining the messages that can be found and why things are where and how they are. Encourage
them to consider the quality of the things they are pointing out and to use them in their reasons,
taking on the voice of the poem. For example they might say: I left you a message in the sloping
roof. I meant you to be warm and dry. Once they have completed their tours invite them to write
down all the examples they can remember in no particular order. You might spend some time at
this point discussing metaphor. Once they have a collection invite them to share with other pairs
to expand their thinking.
Invite the children to make a poem from what they have found. Encourage them to choose the
voice they’d like to write in and who they want the poem to speak to. How will they show this in
their writing? Model a few examples all together taking on different voices and addressing
different audiences. You might want to share some examples of other poems which address the
reader such as: Don’t move the goalposts by Rachel Rooney from My life as a goldfish, Missing you
by Jennifer Watson from Let in the Stars, Sonnet for a Sphere by Rachel Rooney from The
Language of Cat and Tomorrow has your name on it by Roger McGough from Poetry Pie.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Once the children have finished their poems give them the opportunity to read them aloud to a
partner, inviting them to change things that don’t sound right. Once they are happy with their
poems either publish them in an anthology or display them around the school in a place that’s
mentioned in the poem.
Following the theme: Teacher Read
After reading the poem, you might want to think about other ways that you pass messages using
body language, what makes this a good subject for a poem? You could then work in small groups
to write a poem about negotiating situations in school.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Focus Key
Stage
Theme
KS2
Messengers
Messages need messengers to pass them along. Sometimes these messengers are
aware of their role and sometimes they aren’t. This section will explore some of
nature’s messengers that are included in the collection.
KS2: Summer is icumen in and Bee I’ve been expecting you by Emily Dickinson
Poems
Early Years: Dear Bee by Liz Brownlee
KS1: Where go the boats by Robert Louis Stevenson
Teacher Read: Oranges and Lemons
Lead Activity: KS2
In the run up to this sequence of activity invite the children to bring in photographs or other
poems about the seasons to display and share with each other. Consider sharing some of the
poems about The Natural World from Poetryline and inviting the children to find and discover
favourites for performance or display.
https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/s?f[0]=bundle_name%253APoem&f[1]=bundle%3Aclpe_poe
m&f[2]=im_field_theme_ref%3A421
Play the children this recording of Summer is icumen in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVdA9t-AOfU. Invite the children to listen and consider what
the song might be about. What can and can’t they pick up from the song? Explain that this poem is
from Medieval Times when English sounded and was spelt differently.
Display the first two lines of the poem:
Summer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu!
In pairs or small groups invite the children to consider what these lines might mean. Reflecting
back on the song what is the message and who is the messenger?
Divide the children into groups and provide them with a stanza each and invite them to investigate
it, first saying it out loud several times to familiarise themselves with the language. Invite the
children to try and unpick the meaning of their stanza. Encourage them to use a range of reading
strategies – the context of the poem being set at the beginning of summer, reading the poem
phonetically, exploring root words and making best guesses. Share what the children have worked
out and create a version that you are happy with as a class. Compare this to the translated version.
What are the clues that have been chosen? How does the poem group them? What can you see in
your mind’s eye? What location do you picture this poem happening in? What’s the weather like?
Return to the subject of the poem, the cuckoo heralding the start of summer. How does the
cuckoo feature? You could talk about the repeated use of the cuckoo being a motif, representing
summer. As a comparison share Bee I am expecting you! What does this have in common with
Summer is icumen in? What does Emily Dickinson use as the motif for summer?
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
Tell the children they are going to create their own poem about a different season. You might
share Joseph Coelho’s Halloween’s Crumble from Werewolf Club Rules
https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/poems/halloweens-crumble and discuss how you know which
season the poem is about. How are these clues expressed?
Invite the children to consider the clues they notice at the start of each of the seasons, make a
collaborative list for each. Encourage them to use a full range of senses when they are considering
their clues – Autumn might have the smell of bonfire smoke, the taste of blackberries, the sight of
the leaves changing and the sound of geese gathering to fly south for example. You might choose
to spend some time outside observing the current season, looking at how the plants are behaving,
what the air feels like, what you can hear and smell. The children can record these in picture or
note form to take back into the classroom.
Invite the children to create their own seasonal poem including a messenger. Encourage them to
show not tell, with short sensory descriptions rather than long narrative sentences. If they are
having a motif invite them to consider where this might feature, how often and, if it is a sound,
how they will transcribe it. Create a class anthology which might also include some of the other
seasonal poetry they have found. Consider reading appropriate poems throughout the year and
having the anthology displayed with the other books in the classroom for the children to read for
themselves.
Following the theme: Early Years and Foundation Stage
In preparation for the session write the poem Dear Bee in letter form, place in an envelope and
hide in a flower bed.
Spend some time in the outside area investigating which creatures and bugs you can find. As you
are looking, talk with the children about the jobs they think those bugs do. You might want to have
some non-fiction books to hand to explore this further if it sparks the children’s interest.
When the children find the letter invite them to consider why it’s been left there, what do they
know about bees already? Share the poem with the children– you might want to write the poem
out in letter form and read it to a bee puppet or soft toy. Invite the children to share what bees
do. They can ask the toy bee questions about their job, the bee might even have brought along
some honey for the children to try.
Ask the children if there is a letter they would like to write to thank either another bug, animal or
person for what they do. Through shared writing create one altogether. Discuss and decide how
you will deliver it to the recipient. Where would you leave it? What’s the best habitat for this
creature? The recipient might write back the next day.
You could also draw attention to the trails and webs that animals leave behind – could these be
messages? If so what might they be saying? How else do animals pass messages to each other?
Discuss song and sounds. You might choose to share Hilda Offen’s Rain Dance from Blue Balloons
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537
and Rabbit Ears on Poetryline with the children which describes the way a bird calls up worms to
eat. Resource the children to create their own animal messages if they choose to.
Ensure that there are a variety of writing materials outside in case the children want to keep
leaving messages for the bugs and creatures, giving them a choice about how they can best be
delivered - include labels and sticky notes as well as writing paper and envelopes.
Following the theme: KS1
Play the children this clip of a river flowing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3auzV4-kvqQ .
Invite them to share what they can see and hear and build a shared vocabulary bank. Invite the
children to share what they know about rivers already and note this too.
Read aloud Where go the boats? a couple of times, so the children get an ear for the poem.
Provide them with A3 paper and drawing materials and, reading more slowly this time, invite them
to map the river’s journey through the poem adding details. You might want to read the poem a
few times as they draw. Invite them to discuss where the river goes to. Where might the children
be finding the boats? If your school is based near a stream you might want to play Pooh sticks with
the children to explore river flow.
Share the map of the River Thames showing the route the river takes and then share this video
charting the journey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-znrVgVyck. Encourage the children to
note the things they see and like in the video and create a map of this river’s journey. Invite the
children to write a poem charting the journey of a boat down the river Thames to be discovered by
someone in Southend on Sea. Once the children have written their poems they can fold them into
paper boats. Encourage them to write a message to the children on the boat too.
Following the theme: Teacher Read
You might want to compare this traditional version to the Pete Seeger protest song about the
Welsh Mines closing – Bells of Rhymney
https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tqz7oz44ywtq4rmcvdqkgphbsyu?lyrics=1&utm_source=g
oogle&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics. Discuss why the bells
have been picked as messengers in both these poems. You might consider a modern day issue,
what message you might spread about this and how.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. 2015
You may use this resource freely in your school but it cannot be reproduced, modified or used for commercial purposes without the express
permission of CLPE.
The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education is a registered charity no. 1092698 and a company limited by guarantee no. 04385537