At Wordsworth Grasmere, the education team invites schools to experience the Lake District through the words and images captured by William, Dorothy and other Romantic writers 200 years ago. Here’s how they helped one school to thrive.
A pre-visit by the Wordsworth Education team to Haverigg Primary School in Millom on the west coast of Cumbria helped to introduce the children to the topic ‘Let Nature be your Teacher’ through creative writing sessions in the school’s nature area.
The Education team worked with all classes from Nursery to Year 6 delivering Little Wanderers exploratory early years sessions and play-based Words in the Woods sessions. Education staff then delivered a twilight CPD with school staff talking through ideas for developing outdoor creative writing sessions, particularly exploring poetry within the school’s woodland and nature area.
Haverigg’s Year 5s and 6s then travelled to Wordsworth Grasmere to see Dove Cottage for themselves, learn about the Wordsworths’ lives and what the area was like in the Georgian era. Learners went on a Let Nature be Your Teacher guided walk with School Travel Organiser’s mascot Teacher Ted, where they heard about some of the key themes of William’s poetry through extracts relevant to the landscape they were walking through.
One child said: “I enjoyed the walk and looking around Dove Cottage and seeing how different it was to houses now. The museum was also really interesting.”
Another child said they had learned that William mostly wrote poems about what they saw, heard and smelled and sometimes used Dorothy’s notes out of her diary.
Finally the education team visited Haverigg Primary School again and followed up with a poetry session about William’s childhood adventures using charades, creative writing and sketching. Year 6 also took part in a workshop using a Litcraft game which uses Minecraft to explore William’s childhood world through a selection of challenges based on extracts from his poetic autobiography The Prelude.
The partnership has worked so well that Wordsworth Grasmere intends to work with other schools following this same model focusing on outdoor learning.
About Worsworth Grasmere
Nestled away in a historic hamlet in Grasmere sits Dove Cottage, home of the English poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy.
The Cottage transports anyone who steps over the threshold back to the early 1800s, where Wordsworth wrote many of his greatest poems and his sister Dorothy kept her Grasmere journal.
The site tells the story of this remarkable time in his life. Discover Wordsworth’s radical and creative life in the museum, enjoy views of Grasmere from the Viewing Station or contemplate the biodiversity of the Garden-Orchard.
Schools can book from a diverse range of sessions for both primary and secondary school. Teachers EVCs can also get in touch to discuss a bespoke offer, or find out about adaptations that can be made for pupils with SEND.
For more information about school visits to Wordsworth Grasmere, go to wordsworth.org.uk/learn/schools.
