Poetry at Heritage

Recitation Assemblies remain a highlight every half term for pupils and parents alike, as class by class, the children stand to recite collectively the poem they have been learning together.  Our hope and intention at Heritage is that the children will enjoy learning each of these poems individually and that over time they will build up a whole anthology in their memories to treasure as lifelong companions.

As Charlotte Mason recognised, poetry is essential for children because it is ‘the best words in the best order.’ The rhythm and rhymes can help children develop a love of language—and a love of reading. Poetry can spark their creativity and let their imaginations soar! We know that poems expand our language, give access to our rich cultural inheritance, help us develop emotional expression and are tremendously good for our muscle memory.

If a pupil were to start at Heritage in LP and remain through to Y11 they will have learnt the x36 poems listed below.  Perhaps as parents, you might take up the challenge to learn the same and enjoy these poems together with your children.

LP

  • Rain by R L Stevenson
  • Happiness by A. A. Milne
  • Footprints by Shirley Hughes
  • Spring Greens by Shirley Hughes
  • Mice by Rose Fyleman
  • The Swing by R L Stevenson

UP

  • Who Has Seen the Wind by R L Stevenson
  • The Silent Ship by Colin West
  • Daffadowndilly by A A Milne
  • Cats by E Farjeon
  • Bed in Summer by R L Stevenson
  • Now We Are Six by A A Milne

Y2

  • Hurt No Living Thing by C Rosetti
  • Keep a Poem in Your Pocket by  Beatrice Schenk de Regniers
  • Where Go the Boats by R L Stevenson
  • Silver by Walter de la Mare
  • Psalm 121
  • At the Seaside by R L Stevenson

Y3

  • Autumn Fires by R L Stevenson
  • Psalm 23
  • The Moon by R L Stevenson
  • The Pasture by Robert Frsot
  • The Garden Year by Sara Coleridge
  • Windy Nights by R L Stevenson

Y4

  • The Eagle by Alfred Lord Tennyson
  • Fireworks by James Reeves
  • The Fly by Walter de la Mare
  • The Land of Storybooks by R L Stevenson
  • Summer Sun by R L Stevenson
  • The Tyger by William Blake

Y5

  • Sea Fever by John Masefield
  • Romance by Gabriel Setoun
  • Daffodils by W Wordsworth
  • The Destruction of Sennacherib
  • The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Y6

  • The Night Mail by Auden
  • Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore
  • Ecclesiastes 3 vs 1-13
  • The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
  • Shakespeare play and
  • The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls by Longfellow

Y7

  • Macavity:The Mystery Cat by T.S Eliot
  • I have a dream by Martin Luther King
  • O Captain by Walt Whitman

Y8

  • If by Rudyard Kipling
  • I Know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
  • The Lady of Shalott by Alfred L Tennyson

Y9

  • Miracle on St. David’s Day by Gillian Clarke.
  • Sailing to Byzantium by WB Yeats

Y10

  • Cold in the Earth by Emily Bronte’
  • Tears Idle Tears by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
  • Friend, by Hone Tuwhare

Y11

  • Meeting at Night by Robert Browning
  • Because I Could not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson

(The poems in Senior School are not set in stone and can be varied, if desired, by the English teachers.  )