Schools
Rhymes, rhythms and raps empowering young people to discover their voice.
“I was going to fall asleep for poetry to be honest and then once BREIS came in, I was like, just focus.”
Student at Dairy Meadow Primary School taking part in the WordCraft programme from Apples and Snakes
We create lively, hands-on programmes that build oracy, self-expression and confidence. Students work with a performance poet to write, perform and share their own performance poetry.
The professional performance poets and poet educators we work with are highly skilled in encouraging students to play with language, have greater confidence in their creativity and discover the power of their own voice.
Our programme evaluation demonstrates a significant positive impact on children’s oracy skills. Time with one of our performance poets and your young people leave feeling proud, connected and ready to speak out.
Why performance poetry?
- Self-expression
- Oracy
- Aspiration
- Emotional resilience
- Social confidence
- Connection
- Belonging
“It helped me learn my favourite thing is to take a risk.”
Pupil, Westbridge School
Our approach
We foreground Black British and Global Majority Poets
Our poets are real-world, relatable role models often from inner-city backgrounds. They are skilled in developing writing and speaking skills with many blending music, rap and storytelling, showing that poetry is for and about each and every one of us.
We work with professional poets and trained poet educators
All our poets are highly skilled and trained in working with young people in schools, and many, such as Joseph Coelho, have international reputations. We run training sessions for our poets to support them in delivering our programmes.
We mix it up
Many of our poets work across art forms, blending rap, music, movement and dance, storytelling and theatre techniques. For your young people, it is active, fun and empowering.
Why it works
Builds oracy, self-expression and emotional resilience improving future life chances. Builds oracy, self-expression and emotional resilience improving future life chances.
Strengthens wellbeing and learning Our work is particularly impactful for young people who lack confidence with spoken and written words and changing attitudes to poetry and books.
Relatable Young people see relatable role models that inspire and help them understand they too can be a writer or artist or anything they want to be
High quality experiences For many young people it gives them their first experience of high quality arts and live performance
“It was kind of magical, that memory is going to last my whole lifetime.”
Year 6 participant in Apples and Snakes’ WordCraft at Dairy Meadow Primary School, Southall
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