Support vital climate education in UK Schools

Aim

Help Hot Poets bring hopeful, science-backed climate education to more UK Schools.

“Global heating is the single biggest threat facing mankind, yet climate education in this country is woefully inadequate. Children need to be equipped with knowledge and skills but they also need to be inspired, and to feel a sense of agency." - Michael Rosen

Why Support Us?

Our children are growing up in a world of climate fear. They notice the changes around them, care about the planet’s future and have big questions about what comes next.

Those changes feel very close to home. Their local parks flood and turn to brown sludge. There are fewer insects on the car windscreen. Their schools are too hot to comfortably sit and learn. 

Young people need honest information about the challenges we face and they also need stories of hope, possibility and real change.

That’s where our education programme, Ignite, comes in.

Hot Poets Ignite brings brilliant poetry and leading climate science together to help children and young people understand the world around them, discover the power of their own voices and imagine positive futures. When young people feel connected to nature and understand the issues, poetry becomes a powerful tool for expression, creativity and action.

We also work with Let’s Go Zero helping schools achieve their climate action plans.

How we do it?

We work with the best 

Created in partnership with Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen, Oxford University and National Poetry Day, Hot Poets Ignite is part of a growing movement bringing together poetry, science and education. Through our partnership and 2026 takeover of National Poetry Day, our education resources are on course to reach more than a million children.

We work with some of the UK’s most inspiring poets and storytellers, all mentored by Michael Rosen – so beloved by UK children that we can barely mention his name in an assembly without a chorus of "Nice!"

We focus on real climate change solutions

Over the past five years, Hot Poets has worked with climate scientists, architects, farmers, engineers and change makers - innovators working for the green transition, to build a better future. Through poetry, performance and creativity, we bring those inspiring stories into schools.

There is so much positive action happening to save our planet. So many more stories than the sad polar bear on the iceberg.

Nature is returning in unexpected places. Beavers are back in rivers. New technologies are changing how we produce energy. Citizen Science is empowering people to re-green their cities, schools and parks. Communities are finding creative ways to adapt and respond. 

Young people need to know about the real challenges we face, but they also need stories of hope and agency, of the cool things that are happening.

We want them to imagine a future with fewer burning oil cans and more butterflies.

Why do we need your support?

Since launching our education programme, we have been inundated with schools keen to bring these experiences into their classrooms. Demand is growing rapidly. More schools are asking us to visit than we can currently support.

We have the partnerships, the poets, the resources and the demand from schools. What we need now is the capacity to meet that demand and ensure this work reaches as many young people as possible.

Like many small independent arts organisations, we are operating in an increasingly challenging funding landscape. While our current funding allows us to do so much, we need support to sustain and strengthen the organisation behind this work, so that more of our time, energy and resources can be directed towards delivering opportunities for young people.

Your donation will help us empower more teachers, bring more poets and experts into classrooms, offer more subsidised and free opportunities to schools that need them most, and continue building a programme that is already making a difference. 

We need to raise £20,000 this Summer

• All donations matter - your £20, £50, £100 - will add up fast
• £500 -£1000 goes towards putting a poet in a school from a priority area.
• The success of our crowdfunder will enable us to deliver our nation wide education programme - on target to resource 20,000+ schools and reach one million children

This isn’t an aspiration. This is an investment in a project that’s working. Your donation will count.

DONATE NOW

What the People Say

“Hot Poets can credibly claim to be the UK's leading literature and climate change organisation." Arts Council England

"Hot Poets was a brilliant experience for our Year 5 and 6 children. They made climate change easy to understand and inspired some fantastic poetry writing. Our Hot Poet, Jonny, completely engaged the children and the performance for parents was wonderful."   Year 6 Teacher and English lead, Ilchester Primary, Somerset

"I learned that if you stay around nature for ten minutes you feel so happy and positive. We are so lucky to have this brilliant planet to live on and we need to protect it." Abigail, Aged 10

"I would like to see positive examples of climate action woven throughout the curriculum and am proud to be an ambassador for Hot Poets Ignite which seeks to do exactly that.”  Michael Rosen

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 1st September 2026 at 12:00pm