Here are three of my books available to help with education at home. All three are available on Kindle for £2:99. Funny poem for today below this!)
Be the Change, Poems to Help you Save the World, (written with Matt Goodfellow and Roger Stevens) is about every aspect of sustainability. Sustainability and climate are a staple part of the science curriculum across Key Stages 1, 2 and 3. It provides teachers and parents with an excellent starting point for discussion, debate and written response for all the areas covered – including health and wellbeing, opportunity for all, fairness, climate change and peace, etc. tying in with the 17 United Nations’ Development Goals. Most poems end with a small action, achievable by young people themselves, to empower them so they feel less helpless. Here is a sample poem:
Greta Thunberg
Liz Brownlee
When the whole world is deaf
by greed and by choice,
how do you change things
with only your voice?
It’s hard to be noticed,
harder to be heard,
but she stood up and spoke,
could not be deterred.
What made them listen?
What cut through their lies?
Not the pollution
or the fast melting ice,
not the experts or science,
not hunger or flood,
not the extinctions,
our hands red with blood,
it was her steady gaze,
on our planet, alight,
her desperate calm,
her demand, make it right.
It’s what we’ll recall
of her fight for our youth,
her luminous words
her courage, her truth.
Reaching the Stars, Poems about Extraordinary Women and Girls (written with Jan Dean and Michaela Morgan) has won prizes, and poems from it have been performed on the stage of the National Theatre. The poems follow strong, capable and fine women from history right up until today, women who have been to space, invented things, done research appropriated by their male colleagues… as food for thought, discussion, discovery and a springboard to further creativity.
The Same Inside, Poems about Empathy and Friendship (written with Matt Goodfellow and Roger Stevens) was shortlisted for the N. Somerset Teacher’s Book Awards (another of my books won that year!). The poems examine tolerance for differences, feelings, empathy, respect, courtesy, bullying, disability, responsibility etc., providing springboards designed to help teachers and parents talk about difficult subjects.
Hope they help!
Poetry Roundabout 