We write for our rights, and rights are our choices.
Future in our sights, we are children hear our voices.
A short film documenting Children’s Rights As Poetry, a Ledbury Education project.

Education is central to the identity of Ledbury Poetry.

A note from our Director Amy Howard;

“Ledbury Poetry has been quietly building a reputation for impact-driven and dynamic rural education projects since our very early days, and the knowledge we’ve accrued over those years has led to where we are now, with poetry-focused education programmes being at the very heart of the work we’re doing.

I tend to think the sweet spot in this work is where high quality art meets health and wellbeing, and this is never more relevant than when we’re working with schools and young people.

Whether we’re taking incredible poets in to schools to inspire teachers and pupils alike, working with a young person in a Pupil Referral Unit, or introducing a primary school pupil to the power of protest poetry; using the power of words to empower young people, or to spark joy, or build connection…it doesn’t get better than that. It is poetry.”

Childrens Rights Poetry in primary schools

Pupils from Ledbury Primary, Ashperton Primary, Eastnor Primary, Bromesberrow and Much Marcle wrote about what they thought was wrong with the world and what they would do about it, then protested their poems through the streets of Ledbury and performed to one another in green spaces during the 2026 festival. Filmmaker and visual artist Kie Cummings, of The Task at Hand, documented the day.

Poetry with schools and young people

Ledbury Poetry works with schools and young people across Herefordshire throughout the year, not only across the ten days of the festival. In the last twelve months that work reached 2,000 pupils and young people, through projects that range from a single morning with a visiting poet to programmes that run across a whole term, in settings that stretch from village primaries to Pupil Referral Units.

Much of it is shaped by what a school asks for, with poets matched to the setting and to the poems its pupils are ready for, and with writing often tied to a subject the school is already teaching. We also run sessions for teachers, on the principle that a teacher who writes poetry themselves will be more confident teaching it. The programme is defined by flexibility and responsiveness.

Poetry picnics

Poets take poetry out of the classroom and into the school grounds, for reading, writing and sharing with the youngest pupils, in a format that asks little of a school’s timetable and gives pupils an unhurried first encounter with poems.

Poets in schools

We place poets in classrooms across the county for a day, a week or a whole residency, matched to what each school is teaching. Poets we have worked with include Raymond Antrobus, Hollie McNish, Inua Ellams, Jacob Sam-La Rose and Valerie Bloom, and past projects have tied writing to subjects such as forest school, or to themes such as poetry and the Holocaust and ‘colourful cultures’.

Crucial Creators

Crucial Creators is our inclusive creative learning and poetry outreach project, made for young people who are often excluded from, or struggle within, mainstream education, helping them build creative writing and communication skills. We deliver thirty sessions a year across five schools, including Aconbury Pupil Referral Unit in Hereford, where students work in alternative provision to build motivation and re-engage through the arts, and The Bridge at Aylestone, a dedicated autism base. Students at the Pupil Referral Unit have completed formal Arts Awards, and peer mentors help lead the workshops, giving secondary and PRU students leadership experience and a route into thinking about a career. The programme culminates in a performance at the festival, closed to the public and always one of the highlights of our year.

Transition Day

Working with John Masefield High School’s feeder primaries, Toni Cook leads three groups of Year 6 pupils through a day of activities on creativity and expression, timed for the point in the year when they are preparing to move up to secondary school.

A-Level Day

A-level students from around the three counties spend an afternoon with poets and exam-board specialists, hearing how a poet builds a collection, how unseen poetry is read and assessed, and writing work of their own. The day first ran as a study day in 2023 and is now an annual fixture, free and unticketed; recent years have brought Tishani Doshi, the University of Worcester’s Ruth Stacey and Edexcel’s Esther Menon to Ledbury.

The Schools Slam

Poets Spoz and Holly Winter-Hughes work with eleven schools from across Herefordshire through the spring and summer to develop writing and performance skills, culminating in an evening at John Masefield High School where the young writers take the stage. Now in its second year, the slam is sponsored by The Word Association CIC, and tickets are kept low for families, with siblings at a reduced price.

Projects we have run

Three stand out from recent years. Poetry and Song ran over three years, taking a different theme each time — Rivers, the First World War, and Dream Catcher, inspired by Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius — with pupils writing the poems, crafting them into songs and performing them at the festival. Festival in a Day gathered schools in one venue to hear three poets perform and to work through three workshops, leaving with armfuls of first drafts to shape into a showcase where pupils performed to one another. And the Poetry Trail took pupils out to write on location, creating a trail round their own area; back at school they filmed their poems, and each film was uploaded and given a QR code placed at the spot that inspired it.

Through the year

Word Crew

Word Crew is our monthly creative writing workshop for young people aged 10 to 16, run in partnership with Herefordshire Libraries. It gives young writers a regular place to write, share and revise, with the same group returning month after month.

Ledbury Young Poets Competition

Run with Herefordshire Libraries, our annual competition is free to enter and open to anyone aged 18 or under, in two categories of 5 to 11 and 12 to 18. There are five winners in each, each receiving a poetry book, and the top ten read their poems on a festival stage. The 2026 competition asked for poems on the theme In My Imagination…, and closed on 7 May.

House Key for 16 to 24s

Anyone aged 16 to 24 can sign up for a free Ledbury Poetry House Key, which gives access to free tickets for festival events released on the day, and to information about workshops, internships and other opportunities through the year.

Families at the festival

The festival’s children and families programme has included a Schools Day with Nicola Davies, a competition on the theme of rivers run with Herefordshire Libraries and Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, dance and puppet theatre made with and for primary children from across the county, and free outdoor performance in the town. In 2024 every children’s event cost £3, including Nicola Davies’s Schools Day, which schools booked directly with our box office for a hall of 200 Key Stage 2 pupils.

The year ahead

In the coming year we are doing all of this and more, including work with teachers to develop confidence in teaching poetry, a poetry playground at the festival, further school poetry sharing days, and collaborative projects with partners including Hereford College of the Arts.

Who makes it possible

Our work with schools and young people is made possible largely through the generosity of Arts Council England, The Brailsford Charity and the Pennington-Mellor Munthe Trust, and through The Word Association CIC, who sponsor the Schools Slam.