National Poetry Day celebrations 2025
2nd October 25
National Poetry Day 2025 is an annual event which aims to inspire a love of poetry, providing a fantastic opportunity to explore and celebrate the rhyming verse.
The theme for 2025 is Play and 1.5 million people participate on the day.
At The Mall we got involved in the celebration by building poetry into each form’s timetable of lessons, from Latin poems in Year 4 to French poems in Year 1, via a gymnastics poem in PE and even a Maths poem in Year 3!
As well as engaging with familiar poems we love like The Charge of the Light Brigade (Year 6 History), the children created new works centred on rainbows and crayons (in French), a rap about subtraction and poems about fire across other year groups.
Poetry in The Mall curriculum
Poetry forms part of our English literacy curriculum at school; it helps the younger children develop early literacy skills, reading fluency, expand their vocabulary and creativity through reading, analysing, and writing poems.
The benefits are poetry are extensive. Exploring different perspectives in poetry fosters sensitivity and empathy towards others as well as encouraging emotional expression. It gives children a healthy way to express their thoughts and feelings when they might otherwise struggle to articulate them.
For the senior children, our poetry education focuses on developing their enjoyment and understanding, as well as their performance and recital skills. They are also introduced to a variety of different poetry forms like haikus, acrostics, free verse and shape poems.
Today’s activities at The Mall School have been positively inspiring! And certainly align with research by the National Literacy Trust which suggests that children and young people who read, watch or listen to poetry identify significant benefits for their wellbeing, confidence, aptitude for learning and empathy.
