Poetry and tea brings Hungerford Care Home and Hungerford Primary School together

Residents from Hungerford Care Home travelled to Hungerford Primary School so they could all recite the poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ by Edward Lear, as part of a national campaign called Poetry Together spearheaded by broadcaster Gyles Brandreth.

The Poetry Together project is designed to bring care homes and schools together so they can share their love of language and poetry.

Its founder Gyles Brandreth hopes the act of remembering and performing a poem will boost the memories and confidence of children and the care home residents as well as encouraging social interaction.

Headteacher: ’We can’t do things in isolation’

Hungerford Primary School headteacher David Mayer said: “I think the way the two generations have come together has been fantastic. It’s great for the kids to see elderly people learning poetry. It’s great for the residents to come down and see our wonderful young people here, it’s been brilliant, and they have been really looking forward to it.”

The children and the residents have been learning the poem off by heart for the past few weeks.

Kanika Sharma activities coordinator from Hungerford Care Home owned by brighterkind told carehome.co.uk: “It’s amazing to see the way they are interacting with each other and laughing. The residents are very interactive and have made some new friends. They have taught me a lot about poetry.”

Freya Cunningham aged nine, found learning the poem: “Quite easy in some parts and quite tricky in others.” Freya told carehome.co.uk that she conquered the more difficult words by using actions. She said: “Some of the actions we chose just helped us remember it.”

Gyles Brandreth believes a good care home is about building a community and this is where he found his ‘Poetry Together’ project worked. Speaking as a guest on carehome.co.uk's podcast 'Let's Talk About Care', he said: “If you want to engage the brain, you can’t just sit there gazing at the wall, gazing at the TV screen and expect your mind to be active. Its active engagement and poetry is a fun way of doing that but nobody said it isn’t challenging.

"If you have a poem to learn, you can go through the poem, talk about the poet. It gives you a sense of community, it gives you a purpose of your conversation."

Headteacher Mr Mayer is hoping to have continued links with the care home. “It’s making links with all parts of our community. I think that is how a community thrives, he said.

"We can’t do things in isolation, so whether it’s the church or it’s a care home, schools [or] nursery, I think we’ve all got to find a way we can make some links. Then you have that thriving community.

“We can look out for each other, look after each other and appreciate the strengths and the challenges that part of our society faces.”

click here for more details or to contact Hungerford Care Home