Education

Before the Covid-19 crisis hit, the Writers in Schools programme was going full throttle, reaching approximately 6,000 children and young people in 21 counties across the island.

These included visits at St Brigid’s National School in Limerick (Young Adult writer Helena Close), Moyne College in Mayo (poet Terry McDonagh) and Forge Integrated Primary School in Belfast (children’s and Young Adult writer Myra Zepf).

St Oliver’s Primary School in Derry and St James’ National School in Cavan had visits from storytellers (Liz Weir in Derry and Fiona Dowling in Cavan) while Belvedere College Dublin enjoyed a visit from novelist Ré Ó’Laighléis.

Belgrove Senior Girls National School in Clontarf, Dublin, had a visit from children’s and Young Adult writer Siobhán Parkinson whilst Wandesford National School in Kilkenny welcomed poet John W. Sexton for a visit. And Laureate na nÓg Áine Ní Ghlinn visited students in Confey College, Leixlip, Co Kildare.

We had a busy summer exploring how best to adapt the Writers in Schools programme to a virtual platform. This “Approximately 75 writers and storytellers on the Scheme attended these webinars, which is evidence of the eagerness and commitment of our Writers in Schools team of writers to upskill and adapt to new ways of working.”

Students from Timahoe National School, Laois, enjoying a virtual visit with writer and illustrator Oisín McGann

was done through a series of focus groups with writers on the Scheme, online meetings with teachers and a survey that went to all schools in the country.

Based on the feedback, suggestions, and recommendations from this process, Writers in Schools is now offering one-hour virtual single visits to schools across the island for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis, as well as virtual residency workshops. Our new virtual programme kicked off with children’s writer Alan Nolan visiting school children through Limerick City Library.

As part of our professional development opportunities and support for writers during these challenging times, Peter Salisbury delivered a series of webinars as part of this year’s first-ever virtual Writers in Schools Writers Forum, which focused on using Zoom to deliver Writers in Schools visits and workshops. Approximately 75 writers and storytellers on the Scheme attended these webinars, which is evidence of the eagerness and commitment of our Writers in Schools team of writers to upskill and adapt to new ways of working.

It was also really helpful in keeping everyone in touch and getting a clear idea of the challenges facing writers and how they approached handling particular issues that they came up against in trying to engage with schools using online platforms.

We were very happy that two of our Foras na Gaeilge supported Irish language residencies went ahead before the summer, on a virtual platform. These saw Darach Mac an Iomaire working with students from Gaelcholáiste an Phiarsaigh in Dublin, and Richie Conroy Meanscoil Gharman in Enniscorthy.

WorldWise Global Schools (WWGS) residencies took place in post-primary schools in Carlow, Clare, Cork, Dublin, Kilkenny, Limerick and Offaly, with writers Kevin McDermott, Oisin McGann, Tina Pisco, Debbie Thomas, John W. Sexton and Laureate na nÓg Áine Ní Ghlinn. Students in St. Kieran’s Kilkenny experienced their first Zoom writing workshop with Kevin MacDermott which was a great success.

Amongst student feedback to the residencies were the comments, “It was cool to have a poet read his own poetry. It helped me to come up with ideas of my own. It kind of made me braver” and “I realise now that I can make a difference. I am going to try and get involved in action for climate change.”

Teacher feedback included the comments, “The residency encouraged students to think more from the perspective of another individual and consequently develop more understanding and empathy for other people” and “It was great to see how much the students learned about the process of writing, rewriting and editing as well as giving them a deepening awareness of global issues.”

In February, Moira from our Education team attended a WorldWise Global Schools training day which was a great opportunity to meet, once again, other organisations funded by Irish Aid and to share ideas and experience.

The relationship with Irish Aid around development education provision continues to be strong. Poetry Ireland delivered high quality Professional Development Training for primary teachers with the writer John W Sexton and in collaboration with Clare Education Centre. We plan to deliver more Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in 2021.

The annual Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition was launched in January 2020. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, we extended the submission period to June 2020 and were delighted with the number of entries, given that it was a difficult year with Covid and because the schools were closed from March to June.

The competition uses the arts to raise awareness about the leading global issues of our time and this year’s theme was ‘Standing Her Ground’. The winners and runners up of this year’s competition – across six categories – were announced in August and

“We are particularly aware of the effort it took all our schools category entries to participate this year and we would like to thank everyone for their continued interest and support of the Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition.”

we hosted a streamed celebration of the competition on Culture Night in September (you can catch up with it on Poetry Ireland’s YouTube channel). The competition will run again in Spring 2021 and we look forward to lots of entries from schools once again.

WRaPParound 2020 was unfortunately a victim of Covid-19, when schools were closed. Some visits did manage to take place before lockdown but as it is a spoken word initiative, it was not possible to complete it. However, we now have plans to run a version of it next Spring. This will possibly be a hybrid version and we are currently in contact with poets and schools so watch this space. We are delighted to have received support from Dublin City Arts Office and Creative Ireland for a WRaPParound initiative in five Dublin schools.

Poetry Ireland was delighted to be part of WeAreThePoets, a two-year project initiated under Sarah Crossan, the former Laureate na nÓg, and inspiring young people to take ownership of, and express themselves through, poetry. The first phase of the project began in January 2020 and luckily concluded just before Covid-19 closed everything down, with an amazing showcase of work by participants from all over Galway, hosted by Galway Community College in Wellpark.

The second series of writers’ residencies, which were unable to take place as planned, due to Covid restrictions, have just now begun to be rolled out, and will continue into 2021. We are once again delighted to be working in partnership with Louise Ryan of Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board (GRETB) and to have the support of Galway City and County Arts Offices, Galway 2020 and Foras na Gaeilge.

Fifth and sixth classes in primary schools were invited to take part in an online Poetry Ireland poemathon which was unveiled on Poetry Day Ireland in April. The first and last lines of the poem were written by the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins. More than 300 children contributed lines with the final poem being arranged by poet Seamus Cashman. It’s planned that the poem will take pride of place in a time capsule being buried at Poetry Ireland during its future building development.

An online poetry writing workshop for teenagers, led by Seamus Cashman, also took place during Poetry Day Ireland.

Poetry Aloud, the annual poetry speaking competition for post-primary schools, was organised differently this year due to Covid-19 public health guidelines, with virtual entries in place for the first time in its history.

Schools were invited in October to select students to represent their school from any of the three categories (Junior, Intermediate, Senior) and teachers could submit a phone video recording of the students speaking the prescribed poem.

In December 2020, the entries were being considered by Poetry Ireland and its partner in the competition, the National Library of Ireland, with the competition due to move forward in early 2021. Thanks again this year to University College Cork for its support of the competition.

We were delighted to launch the Behind the Lines video series, giving students new insights into poems on the Leaving Certificate, featuring a range of poets and writers in the videos. We also presented the Storytime for Smallies video series, featuring some writers from our Writers in Schools scheme.

The Poet in Residence’s project Alphabet Blitz for the City of Dublin, which launched in July, received submissions from schools. The Poet in

WeAreThePoets showcase event in Galway (photographed pre Covid-19)

“It was great to see how much the students learned about the process of writing, rewriting and editing as well as giving them a deepening awareness of global issues.”

Feedback from a teacher about the WorldWise Global Schools programme

Residence, Catherine Ann Cullen, had a chance to talk to schoolchildren about the project when she appeared on RTÉ’s News2Day programme in September.

During 2020, we collaborated with Quotidian around the PoetryJukeBox and particularly most recently ‘No Word for Stay’ which took the Troubles as its theme and featured Paul Muldoon. We are planning a number of collaborations for 2021 including LabelLit for Poetry Day Ireland and Project 5 for primary schools.

Poetry Ireland and Childrens Books Ireland are working on a series of workshops for writers who work with children and young people to enhance online skills and the delivery of digital content – these will be rolled out in 2021. This has been made possible through funding from the Arts Council’s Capacity Building fund stream.

Based on the success and quality of the initiatives in 2019 and 2020, Poetry Ireland will continue to collaborate with IBBY Ireland to deliver a series of residencies to families and children living in Direct Provision. These workshops will be a mixture of inperson and digital events.

Poetry Ireland has collaborated with the picture book artist Mary Murphy to develop a series of Covid theme posters for very young children based on wellknown rhymes and tales. These were rolled out digitally to schools with the support of Gill Education.