Children and young people's engagement with poetry in 2024
Poetry has the power to transport children and young people to new worlds, empower them to speak about issues that matter to them and act as a tool to process emotions and ideas (Clark & Lant, 2018; Clark et al., 2023; Howard, 2022).
Over the past few years, the ways that children and young people can engage with poetry have changed and we would like to understand better what poetry means to those who engage with poetry and what could be done to engage those who aren’t already reading or writing poetry.
What will our new poetry survey set out to do?
We aim to conduct the biggest survey to date about children and young people’s engagement with poetry.
We will explore children and young people's motivations to read, write and perform poetry, as well as their engagement with poetry in different formats, including print, performance and social media.
The survey will explore how children and young people might use poetry to support their mental well-being or the issues and causes that they care about. Those who don’t read, write or perform poetry will be asked what could be done to make poetry more interesting to them.
The information gathered in this new poetry survey will help shape the landscape of poetry provision in the UK.
Take part in our survey
We need you help to gather as broad a sample of data as possible. Once the survey is complete and the report is published, your school will receive a school-specific report of your survey data to help you.
- This survey is open to all 8 to 18-year-olds in the United Kingdom
- The online survey will go live on 7 May until 21 June 2024.
- It is free to sign up and take part in the survey
- Teachers can sign up on behalf of their classes and schools, and as a thank you for taking part, you will receive a summary of your pupils' responses.