The “Jabberwocky approach” to poetry teaching in schools, which relies too heavily on “lightweight” nonsense verse and too little on the classics, risks turning an entire generation away from the art form.

A report from the schools inspectorate Ofsted gives warning today that poetry teaching in England can be repetitive and dull, with the same few poems chosen time and again for study. In primary school teachers tended to chose nonsense or whimsical poems such as Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat and Spike Milligan’s On the Ning, Nang, Nong, poems that tell a strong story, such as Walter de la Mare’s The Listeners, or poems that are easy to imitate, such as Roger McGough’s The Sounds Collector.

William Blake’s Tyger was the most popular classic poem taught in primary schools. Only a minority tried poems such as Wordsworth’s Daffodils or Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

As many secondary schools also included The Listenersand Jabberwocky, it is therefore likely that some pupils study the same small number of poems.

Secondary pupils also often studied individual poems rather than poets, so their experience of poetry tended to be of single poems written by different writers. Common choices were Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et decorum est, W. H. Auden’s Funeral Blues and Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.

There was widespread agreement that Shakespeare, Blake, Hughes and Heaney should be taught in secondary schools, with John Agard and Benjamin Zephaniah named as the most-popular poets from other cultures.

But few teachers could give inspectors a satisfactory explanation for their choice of poetry and inspectors cited a survey by the United Kingdom Literacy Association, which found that more than half of teachers could not name more than two poets.

The National Curriculum requires primary pupils to cover both modern and classic poetry. Secondary students should read poetry from the English literary heritage and poems written for young people and adults. At both stages, pupils should also study poetry from different cultures and traditions.

In primary schools teachers often knew too little about poetry to teach it properly and are unsure how to respond to pupils’ own writing, a report found. At secondary level, pupils spent too much time trying to imitate the work of popular poets, but were given too little encouragement to develop their own style.

Inspectors noted with regret that at GCSE level, pupils spent large amounts of time studying poetry, but almost never composed anything of their own. One girl aged 16, told inspectors: “I can’t remember the last time I wrote a poem.”

While younger children told inspectors that they liked poetry, those in secondary school found the subject dull. In some cases, little more was required of pupils than to count the lines or list the rhymes. “The overuse of tasks like this means that pupils’ enjoyment diminishes and poetry becomes a chore rather than a pleasure,” inspectors concluded.

While inspectors found that the standard of teaching poetry was good in two thirds of schools, overall it was weaker than other aspects of English teaching. Lessons were rated “outstanding” in only seven of the 86 schools inspected.

The report, Poetry in Schools, urged teachers to make sure they allow children to study a wider range of poems from classic writers and other cultures. It also suggested that schools provide more opportunities for pupils to write independently.

Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, said it was vital that poetry was taught in an engaging way. “Teachers should embrace but not be confined to the classics. There is a myth that poetry is obscure, which teachers can explode by introducing pupils to a broad range of poets.”

The five poems most likely to be studied in primary schools

The Highwayman (Alfred Noyes)
On the Ning, Nang, Nong (Spike Milligan)
Jabberwocky (Lewis Carroll)
The Owl and the Pussycat (Edward Lear)
From a Railway Carriage (R. L. Stevenson)

Source: Ofsted

Poets' corner

“It’s also important that children learn that although it is ‘nonsense’, it’s written about serious, real things” Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate

“The literacy strategy has been disastrous for poetry. Children spend their time counting metaphors and proving what makes a poem effective. Effective for who?” Michael Rosen, Children’s Laureate

“You could take all the anthologies published for children over the last 20 years, and heave half of them in the bin, without any sense of loss.” Anne Fine, the author and former

“I always say, ‘You think Benjamin Zephaniah is a radical poet, just look at Shelley’,” Benjamin Zepheniah

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