School visits for primary schools

Primary school visits to HomePlace are built around hands-on creative learning experiences that are closely connected to Seamus Heaney poetry and the national curriculum.

Take part in an interactive creative writing workshop in which your class will write and perform a collaborative poem. Pupils will be introduced to poetic techniques, then immediately get the chance to use their new skills.

Alternatively, your pupils could take part in a creative activity based on a Seamus Heaney poem. They could make and taste their own butter after reading Churning Day, build and fly a kite based on the poem A Kite For Aibhín, or enjoy a sensory exploration of some delicious homemade snacks inspired by Blackberry-Picking.

Blackberry-Picking

Blackberry Picking is an educational experience based on Seamus Heaney’s much-loved poem of the same name. Tailored to Key Stage One pupils, the experience includes an abridged exhibition tour, a shared storytelling session, a tasty blackberry picnic and an opportunity to be creative using blackberry ink.

An enthusiastic team of guides, a creative learning officer, and an education officer will be here to enrich your learning experience which has been designed to complement multiple areas of learning in the Key Stage One curriculum.

A Kite For Aibhín

‘A Kite for Aibhín’ is an educational experience based on Seamus Heaney’s much-loved poem of the same name. Tailored to Key Stage Two pupils, it includes an abridged exhibition tour, a shared storytelling session and/or poetry reading, a kite-making workshop and a kite flying experiment.
An enthusiastic team of guides, a creative learning officer, and an education officer will be here to enrich your learning experience which has been designed to complement multiple areas of learning in the curriculum.

Churning Day

‘Churning Day’ is an educational experience based on Seamus Heaney’s much-loved poem of the same name. Tailored to Key Stage Two pupils, it includes an abridged exhibition tour, a shared storytelling session and/or poetry reading, a butter-making workshop and a butter tasting challenge.

An enthusiastic team of guides, a creative learning officer, and an education officer will be here to enrich your learning experience which has been designed to complement multiple areas of learning in the curriculum.

Anatomy of a Poem

‘Anatomy of a Poem’ is an educational experience inspired by Seamus Heaney’s words, rhythm and rhyme. This Key Stage Two experience includes an abridged exhibition tour and an interactive creating writing workshop, during which pupils write and perform their own poems. A popular Shared Education trip, the programme offers the opportunity for curriculum-based collaboration between schools.

Alphabets

The poem ‘Alphabets’ was written by Seamus Heaney in 1984; in it he recalls the process of learning how to read and write – a process that enabled him to ‘journey into the wideness of the world’. He said: ‘I had already begun a journey into the wideness of the world. This in turn became a journey into the wideness of language, a journey where each point of arrival – whether in one’s poetry or one’s life – turned out to be a stepping stone rather than a destination, and it is that journey which has brought me now to this honoured spot.’ (Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, Stockholm 1995) The KS3 ‘Alphabets’ education programme at HomePlace has been devised to enable students to journey into the wideness of their world; to explore the world of language, letters and creativity.