National Poetry Day / Helping young imaginations spark and bloom
Role: Design (content development for worksheets and social assets) and Strategy.
Poetry can help young children engage with literacy and channel their emotions, yet one in five schools don’t include it as a significant part of the curriculum.[1] We worked with the Forward Arts Foundation to inspire more teachers to take part in National Poetry Day – and increased downloads of classroom resources by an incredible 83%.
[1] Centre for Literacy in Primary Education and Macmillan Children’s Books: https://clpe.org.uk/system/files/2023-03/CLPE%20Poetry%20Survey%202023.pdf
Rhyme and reason
Research shows that poetry provides an outlet for creativity and is associated with positive literacy behaviours, especially among children in lower socioeconomic communities.
Teachers, unsurprisingly, want to teach more of it in schools – but because they either lack the time or confidence to incorporate it into the classroom, this isn’t happening. Overcoming those barriers, particularly in underprivileged areas, was the challenge we were set by our client, the Forward Arts Foundation – the brilliant team behind the annual National Poetry Day event.
Strategically staged
To inspire teachers, you need to reach teachers. We engaged with influencers and partners, and planned and delivered an organic and paid social campaign in education spaces, to raise awareness of National Poetry Day, poetry’s classroom benefits and the availability of classroom materials.
Our messaging focused on how the resources on the client’s website were free, ready to use and designed by curriculum experts – so whether the barrier to joining in was time or confidence, making it as easy as possible to teach poetry removed it.
For the same reason, we recommended that the resources themselves were completely redesigned. We took what used to be teacher notes and transformed them into worksheets that could also act as prompts and thought starters. Visual appeal was essential, but even more important was the ease and relevance of the materials to help us convert teachers to poetry advocates.
Conceptually clear
The look and feel of our National Poetry Day communications centred on inspiration and convenience. Through the theme of ‘Spark and Bloom’, we conveyed how poetry can ignite the imaginations of young people while reflecting the myriad positive qualities it can foster through stars and flowers.
Top of the class
The success of the project was ultimately to be judged on the number of resource downloads achieved. Would teachers respond positively to the new worksheet style, and would our messaging strike a chord?
Happily, the answers were a resounding yes on both fronts. As well as an 83 per cent increase in the number of downloads year on year and a 100 per cent increase in the number of people who viewed the resources and then went on to download them, the average time visitors spent on the webpage rocketed from two seconds to almost two minutes.
Our social media content even caught some distinguished eyes, with a message being reposted by the Royal Family’s X/Twitter account, followed by more than 5.7 million people.
With more teachers accessing National Poetry Day resources and inspiring children to engage with a subject that can make a profound difference on their lives, we’re proud to have played a part in a truly successful campaign.