Please Mrs Butler: The timeless school poetry collection

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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. Alliteration: a common literary device in children’s poetry. It’s seen through the repetition of consonant sounds, like “Derek Drew.” The speaker continues, complaining again to Mrs. Butler about Derek Drew. The young speaker tells her teacher that the boy is taking her rubber or eraser, and she wants him to stop. The third stanza follows a very similar structure to the first. Then, the fourth stanza conveys the same dismissive attitude readers saw from the teacher in the second stanza.

The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem. Parallelism: the use of the same line structure. For example, likes one and two of stanza two as well as the structures of all the odd-numbered stanzas. She doesn’t have a suggestion; instead, she provides these humorous and desperate-sounding ideas. The student should do whatever they think, including, but not limited to, going to the roof with their books.According to a list I saw the other day, Please Mrs Butler is one of the top ten favourite children's poems in the UK. It is the first poem in this collection and we used to have it read to us in infant school every day so it felt. Due to oversaturation, it is not my favourite of the collection, but I do think this whole book is filled with very clever observations of the absurdities of both children and teachers and creates a lot of nostalgia. They are a little old-fashioned. Even when I was in school, teachers didn't smoke in the staffroom and headteachers couldn't punish children with slippers, and that was over thirty years ago, so I've no idea how accurate it is to MODERN primary school life, but it certainly feels accurate to what I remember. I always think this would make an excellent school play. 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. 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'. Allan Ahlberg's collection of witty and comical poems about the trials and tribulations of being at school is superb. Although some of the content is pretty dated, having been written in 1983, the comedy contained within still manages to produce laughter in the classroom. Children of all ages can relate to the various aspects of school life such as friendship, breaking up and making up, misbehaving and getting into trouble, and mean and unsympathetic teachers.

This poem appeals to both children and teachers alike, thanks to its structure: the odd stanzas are spoken by a particularly talkative child complaining about what other children are doing, and the even stanzas comprise the teacher Mrs Butler’s responses to the child’s requests, with mounting frustration. Anyone who’s endured a particularly fraught and annoying class at school (and let’s face it, which of us hasn’t?) will find something that strikes a chord here. Whole class activities Shared writing. Begin by asking pupils to help you make a list of the things people say in school. This could be divided up into two halves: things teachers say, and things children say. Compare the different statements. What do the children's statements have in common with each other, and the teachers'? How are the two different kinds of statement different? What do they tell us about the people concerned? What kinds of tone of voice are they spoken in? Discuss the feelings of both parties. Hyperbole: an intentional exaggeration that’s meant to entertain or emphasize a certain point. For example, “Take your books on the roof.” After this, the teacher refers to the student as “my lamb.” This is no doubt meant as a term of endearment, but it also comes across as patronizing and dismissive. It’s clear the teacher doesn’t want to spend any time on this issue. I used this poem as a tool to help the children write their own poems, as well as getting them to replace ‘Derek Drew’ for their partners name as an alliteration.

This poem humorously mentions the typical incidents that children may experience while in school which allows them to relate to the poem more. What makes the poem comical, is the unexpected responses that are given from the teacher. 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. 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; From the opening verse of the first poem it is easy to see how beneficial such a collection is to a child's understanding of the features of the literary form such as structure, verse, rhythm and rhyming couplets:

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.” Reading again as an adult I notice poems such as Slow -reader with a greater sense of empathy and the poems take me on more of a reflective journey.

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This is a brilliantly child friendly book that they can relate to due to the wording and the way the poems are written. Children will really love the poems as they are a focussed around children's everyday lives and their lives within school. The poems are also written in a way that adults can relate to, as quite often the poem is from the view point of the teacher or the adult. There are many types of poetry used throughout the book, mainly written to sound like children speaking, and also full of humour.

The first time I read Please Mrs. Butler was as a year 6 pupil. .it is a journey through the school day - School time, Play time, Dinner time, School time again and Home time - all from the prospective of the children. 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. There aren’t many modern or contemporary poems which recall schooldays with affection, but ‘In Mrs Tilscher’s Class’ does just that. Duffy paints a fond picture of her time at primary school and on the brink of adolescence, powerfully suggested by the poem’s final image of the sky breaking into a thunderstorm.

Discover more classic poetry with these poems about work, these poems about animals of all kinds, these fine devotional and religious poems, and these poems for birthday occasions. Through rhyming couplets and short punchy lines Ahlberg creates a fun yet informative read for children of all ages. Younger children can enjoy the musicality of the poems when read aloud, whilst older children can appreciate the rhymes and relatable content of the verses. The third part of the poem progresses in the same way, with the final issue being raised in the fifth stanza and amusingly dismissed in the sixth.