Who Are We? An exploration of identity through spoken word poetry

The theme of our project is in the form of a question taken from a Benjamin Zephaniah poem: Who Are We? A provocation about identity was considered a good conduit for our pupils, many of whom come from multi-national and multi-lingual backgrounds. We encouraged them to think about poetry viscerally, using their own experiences as a form of expression, and if they so wished, their home languages. At the same time, we encouraged our teachers to revisit their own views on poetry — their opinions of it, how they were taught it, how they thought they should teach it. And in so doing, some of the teachers began to write and perform their own poetry, and many certainly changed their opinions of it. It has been remarked upon by several teachers that this exploration of identity has created a new level of understanding between themselves and their pupils, and has begun to reframe their identities as teachers.

Over the course of the project, the question has orientated itself not just to our personal identities but our professional ones too — as teachers and practitioners. Squeezed by the attrition of human and monetary resources, teachers across all levels of experience increasingly find themselves in a high-stakes, fast-paced and somewhat uncompromising system. One of our main challenges is to infiltrate this system in a positive and meaningful way. Our identities can easily be lost in the mechanics; there is simply no time for uncertainty. However, working alongside poets from Eastside has provided our teachers with space, free of the fear of failure, to experiment with new techniques and reconsider their identities. 

At the start of each term, teachers and artists participate in training sessions run by practitioners at Cleveland School and Eastside, to develop a shared approach to teaching poetry using specialist spoken word techniques honed at Eastside and inherent in much drama and oracy pedagogy. We have had inspiring guest poets at these sessions too: a beat boxing workshop, a coaching session, and lunch out at a local curry house. These days have been essential in developing our community of learning, allowing us to take risks together, to laugh and be playful. In the subsequent in-school partnerships with poets, teachers have felt freer, and the stakes have felt lower. 

At the end of the first year, all the teachers involved in the project dared to deliver CPD to their whole school staff, sharing techniques and approaches learnt. Some performed poetry publicly to parents and pupils at sharings. 

Now in the second year, we have a new cohort of teachers working with our poets, and a team of ​‘Coaches’ working across the schools, building on their experiences from the first year and exploring how to continue developing their practice across the curriculum. Whilst following a slightly different path, Coaches continue to have touch points with the poets in school and attend part of the termly training sessions. They are partnered with the ​‘new’ teachers to offer support, and in many ways, they are a test of the project’s legacy.

Our Senior Leaders now meet separately as a group, as well as attending the training sessions. Together, they look more broadly at auditing their whole school oracy approaches, and plan ways in which both spoken word and spoken word poetry can influence School Development Plans and future curriculum design.

So, in answer to the question Who Are We?: 

• We are a new collective of seven schools in our local borough of Redbridge 
• We have built trust; time for honest reflections about the development of our individual practice and that of our school; a sense of community to share experiences. 
• We intend for this collective to continue its journey together. 
• We all had different starting points, different courses to run, different obstacles to overcome. 
• But we are walking slowly and sensitively along the journey, offering a structure but allowing a flow.