The tradition of children reciting poetry by heart is to be revived with a national competition open to every pupil from the ages of 7-11 in the United Kingdom.

Those taking part will stand in front of fellow pupils and deliver poems ranging from The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear to Rudyard Kipling’s The Way Through the Woods.

Winners will be chosen from each school that holds the competition. The group will then be narrowed down to 12 finalists chosen in regional competitions held at local libraries.

The grand final will take place next April in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, as part of the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.

The contest, called Off by Heart, is being organised by the BBC. The inspiration was provided by Daisy Goodwin, the television presenter, author and a champion of poetical works.

“Poetry is a bit of a dying art and the only way we will get it back to the front of the nation’s consciousness is to teach it to kids,” said Goodwin, whose company Silver River Productions is closely involved with the project.

“This will be great fun. It won’t be The X Factor. It will be a warm, friendly competition,” she said.

The aim is to revive pupils’ interest in reciting poetry in public, rather than simply reading it in class.

Teaching of the subject was branded by Ofsted last year as often “dull” and “lightweight”, with only seven out of 86 schools inspected in England described as “outstanding”.

Writing in The Sunday Times today, Goodwin admits teachers may struggle to make poetry interesting because they never learnt to love it themselves. The answer, she believes, is to start reading poetry when young. “A seven-year-old might miss every nuance of Kubla Khan or Ozymandias,” she says. “But learnt young, the poems will stay in the head for life, adding to the lustre of good moments and illumination in the bad.”

As a child, Goodwin would learn Shakespeare’s sonnets by heart and she can still recall them today.

The idea for a competition is based on schemes in America and Ireland. Last year in the USA, more than 150,000 children took part.

One teacher from Kansas wrote at the time: “Success in reciting poetry gives even reluctant learners a feeling of success in an area in which they have had little interest.”

In the regional rounds, children will choose a poem from a list of 12 on the BBC website. The writers range from Words-worth to Benjamin Zephaniah.

For the final, which will be presented by Jeremy Paxman, the Newsnight host, there will be one compulsory poem and a new list from which to choose a second work.

The winner, who will be judged on their expression, understanding of the work and accuracy, will be awarded a trophy while their school will receive £500 in book tokens.

For more information on the competition go to www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/offbyheart

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy