OAKBANK School students worked with leading poet Simon Armitage on a special Brontë exhibition.

The students from the Keighley school were invited to help create a display to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Branwell Brontë.

Their efforts went on show last week at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, where the exhibition will run throughout 2017.

Simon is the 2017 creative partner of the Brontë Society, which runs the museum, and he will has curated this year’s flagship exhibition Mansions In The Sky, which explores the mind and work of Branwell.

The Oakbank students were selected to become part of an audio recording of one of Branwell’s poems and they spent the morning reciting and recording with Simon Armitage and his producer.

The recording can be heard by museum visitors in a life-size replica of Branwell’s studio.

Daisy Matarrelli, an English teacher at Beckfoot Oakbank School, said the students had a brilliant day working with the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

She said: “Our students really enjoyed the experience and it would be really great if we could get the whole community interested in the exhibition and in our students' fantastic achievement.”

Jenna Holmes, arts officer at the museum, who organised the event, praised the students for their behaviour, enthusiasm and patience.

She said: “Working with the Oakbank students was a real privilege and it’s great to be able to include them in the museum’s contemporary arts programme.

“We look forward to developing our relationship with the school and are already considering other ways to involve them in our work.”

The students involved received a free family pass so they could take their families to see what they created.

Simon Armitage will spend the year working with the Brontë Society on events to celebrate the bicentenary of Branwell, who he described as the charismatic and compensated brother of the famous sisters.

He said: “The museum has given me opportunity to explore some of Branwell’s early talent for art and literature, and the chance to reflect on the disappointments of his later years.

“As a poet of this landscape and region I recognise Branwell’s creative impulses and inspirations. I also sympathise with his desire to have his voice heard by the wider world.”

The exhibition’s title, Mansions in the Sky, is named after a line in a poem that the precocious 19-year-old Branwell sent to famous poet William Wordsworth in 1837.