Poetry by Heart Website
From Poetry by Heart
Resource type: Booklists and book reviews, Online learning and apps
Price band: Free
Key stage: KS2, KS3, KS4, KS5
Region(s): All of UK
The Poetry by Heart website provides access to hundreds of poems that lend themselves to being spoken aloud for teachers and pupils to explore.
The selected poems span six centuries and can be searched in a number of ways.
- Five Timeline Anthologies for ages 4+ (NEW for 2026), 7+, 11+, 14+ and 16+ allow users to explore poems chronologically with filters provided to help refine a search. These include filters for the poetry clusters for all the major GCSE exam boards.
- Poetry Allsorts provides a random selection of poems hidden behind colourful tiles to encourage younger students to explore and discover new poems.
- First World War Poetry Showcase
Cost: Free.
About Poetry by Heart: Poetry by Heart was founded in 2012 by former UK Poet Laureate (1999-2009) Andrew Motion and educator Julie Blake as a way to encourage young people to explore and engage with poetry. It is now a collaboration between The Full English; The Poetry Archive; The Poetry Society; Forward Arts Foundation/National Poetry Day; the English Association; the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education; the National Association for the Teaching of English; Homerton College, University of Cambridge; Shakespeare’s Globe and Oxford English Dictionary.
Literacy Hive Likes:
- Individual poems can be viewed in full and many come with introductory notes, short poet biographies and links to audio recordings or videos of past performances from the Poetry by Heart competition.
- Teachers who are exploring the new 4+ Timeline with their KS1 pupils report a boost in confidence and communication skills, as well as an improvement in their phonological awareness and vocabulary.
- The Poetry by Heart website supports the Poetry by Heart Competition, a poetry speaking competition for schools and colleges in England.
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