Please Mrs Butler: The timeless school poetry collection

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The italics used to emphasise the "our" and "other" make the verse very effective for reading aloud to a class, and the children can have great fun joining in with this. The rhyming words and structure of the poem can be demonstrated in a literacy lesson. I read this poem to my year 1 class during BSE and they absolutely enjoyed it. Although this poem is fairly outdated, the comical content still produced a lot of laughter from the children. Moreover, the repetitive nature of the poem engaged the children to participate in the reading of the poem. Ahlberg wrote his first book when he was thirty-seven, after a decade of teaching - a profession that he maintains is "much harder" than being a writer. He says that if he hadn't become a writer, he would have loved to be a soccer player. He was married for many years to fellow children's author Janet Ahlberg, with whom he often worked. Their daughter, Jessica Ahlberg, is also a children's author. The teacher has a surprising answer. Readers are likely expecting to hear the teacher chastise the child, Derek, and possibly praise the young speaker for doing what’s right. But, the teacher does something very different. Using anaphora, the poet describes the teacher telling her student to “sit in the hall” or “sit in the sink.”

The lines conclude with, “But don’t ask me!” Although the teacher is the only one who has the power to do anything about these minor inconveniences, she is not willing to. This is clearly quite frustrating for the student but, very likely, not nearly as frustrating as being constantly barraged by questions and issues is for the teacher.Differentiated group activities Using the technique of text marking the children are to find and mark the different sections of the poem, identifying any patterns that they notice. This begins with noting the rhymes in individual stanzas; and could lead on to how the six stanzas are divided up into 3 'sections'. In the first lines of this poem, the speaker, a young student, begins by asking their teacher what to do about a boy copying their school work. Because the child says “This boy” when referring to “Derek Drew,” it seems like the speaker is a young girl.

Haircut' depicts a common fear in many children's lives - standing out. At school consistency is key; the minute you change your appearance someone will have something to say about it. Ahlberg captures the annoyance at being told the blatantly obvious; Allan often uses traditional verse forms like the ballad. Many of his poems have a very strong rhythm, and some sound like playground rhymes and chants. Some are actually written to be sung to a traditional tune. You can sing ’What shall we do with a grumpy teacher?’ to the tune of ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor?’! The poem is about a student asking the teacher for help with minor inconveniences in the classroom. Rather than helping, the teacher expresses her irritation and frustration with having to always be the one to fix these relatively insignificant issues. Alliteration: a common literary device in children’s poetry. It’s seen through the repetition of consonant sounds, like “Derek Drew.” Allan Ahlberg is best known for his school poems. There are poems about lost scissors, the class hamster, making friends and falling out, the excitement of a stray dog in playground – and the infamous Derek Drew! He captures the noisy playground moments as well as the quiet -thinking-in-the-corner moments. He notices the small, absurd things that go on all the time in every school.

Allan always dreamed of being a writer, but first he became a primary school teacher. However, nothing has been wasted. The children in his class, his daughter, his passion for football and even being a postman for a while … all have found their way into Allan’s stories and poems.