“It was an absolute pleasure to work with the Festival at PPG Canalside. The activities and ‘Snow Lion’ were a big hit with our fans and visitors.”
Lesley Turner, HTAFC (Huddersfield Town) training ground
Schools Programme
Bringing arts and culture into schools
Our Schools Programme has grown significantly in recent years. We now have a dedicated Schools Co-ordinator with a ring-fenced budget, who organises an annual programme of assemblies, workshops and resources in the run up to the Festival each year.
In 2025, we worked with 10 schools, providing 17 workshops for around 600 students of primary and secondary age. We also offered either an assembly with our Schools Co-ordinator or slides to be shown at assemblies, which reached a further total of over 3,000 students in Huddersfield.
An above average number of pupils who accessed these workshops are entitled to FSM (free school meals) than the national average. The recent economic landscape has meant that it can be a challenge for schools to enhance the cultural capital for the children in their care but with the support of our Schools Programme this can be achieved in several ways:
- bringing high-quality performers and workshop facilitators to their schools
- eliminating transport costs
- eliminating the need for parental engagement to access art and literature events
- providing learning experiences which build on and enhance the curriculum
- providing resources that would otherwise not be available to these pupils
We know from feedback that of the main highlights for most pupils was the opportunity to create their own work and perform it. Students have also been inspired to request a journal following workshops, so they could continue with their personal writing journey.
Workshops taught both technical skills and the understanding of different writing genres, history, literature, culture, environmental issues, links to science and geography through the arts, poetry, rap, dance, music.
In addition, feedback from schools showed that pupils had learned a great deal about personal development too such as confidence, resilience, kindness, respect, pride, citizenship, responsibility, teamwork and independence, creativity, managing emotions and acceptance of each other’s similarities and differences.
Teachers unanimously said that what the pupils learned linked to and greatly enhanced the curriculum taught in their schools. Due to the skills and inspiration of the artists/authors and facilitators, pupils’ engagement throughout these workshops was very high, according to teachers, and many pupils were motivated afterwards to continue with the kind of creative work they had been learning.
If your school would like to find out more, contact our Schools Co-ordinator Louise Grassby at [email protected]
Postcode Neighbourhood Trust lottery funding supports Mic Champs project at HuddLitFest25
Thanks to Postcode Lottery funding, HuddLitFest this year was able to commission a special project of workshops and performance, engaging young people in an underserved area of Huddersfield. Click here to find out more…
Magic Little Grants provided invaluable funding for two schools workshops in March 2023 at Reinwood Junior School, Huddersfield. Delivered by Huddersfield-based performance poet and author Donavan Christopher, aka Rappaman, they promoted reading, poetry and confidence, with themes of respect of self and others.
March 2023
“HLF have been phenomenal in raising and promoting literacy standards and instilling a love of reading for our students by coordinating guest speakers into school. For weeks after Juno Dawson’s events students actively debated ideas of Feminism and Gender Identity; gender and sexuality became less of a taboo in school. Lemn Sissay inspired Year 9 students to explore poetry and literature surrounding ideas of identity. Fantastic poetry readings and discussions that helped students to question judgements and contemplate current events.”
Jess Hardy, Salendine Nook School
Pupil feedback:
“I learned that you can write a poem from a story.”
“Now I know raps are fast and have rhyming couplets.”
Staff feedback:
“Freedom of poetry writing and expression of ideas was inspiring.”
“A huge thank you to Huddersfield Literature Festival for helping to arrange a virtual visit from Ele Fountain – it was brilliant and we feel so lucky to have had the pleasure of Ele’s ‘company’. The talk was informative, engaging and her insider knowledge was fascinating. Our students were beyond excited in anticipation of the event and we are all looking forwards to next year’s festival (and reading Ele’s next book of course!).”
Donna Richardson, Teacher of English and Literacy Coordinator, North Huddersfield Trust School, March 2021
Local partners
HuddLitFest has established an extensive network of partnerships with other local cultural organisations and social enterprises. Every year we work in tandem with many other local organisations; this allows us to showcase their work and involve their service users at the Festival.
Partners we have worked with include:
Annapurna Indian Dance
Aspire Creating Communities
Balbir Singh Dance Company
Children’s Art School
Communities Together
Cosmia Festival
Dark Horse Theatre
fairandfunky
Give… a few words
Hoot Creative Arts
Huddersfield Civic Society
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
Huddersfield Live
Huddersfield Town AFC/Town Foundation
Ink Spill Poetry
Kirklees Local TV
MACFEST
One World/Sharing Our Stories
Radio Sangam/Sangam Festival
S2R (Support to Recovery)
Serendipity writing group for wellbeing
U3A Huddersfield branch
University of Huddersfield
Woven Festival
West Yorkshire Print Workshop
West Yorkshire Young Poet Laureates initiative
Words in Mind
Words in Mind
From 2017 – 2021, we worked with Kirklees Third Sector Leaders organisation Words in Mind, presenting a range of bibliotherapy workshops, partnering on an Understanding Bibliotherapy conference and running online creative writing workshops as part of our 2020-2021 Creative Voices project.
“These virtual classes have been wonderful in this difficult year. It was great to meet new people, be inspired to write and have regular social interaction. They have definitely motivated me to write more and have helped my mental health. Many thanks.”
Ruth Mawdsley, Creative Voices project participant, October 2020-2021
One World/ Sharing our Stories
One World craft group and Sharing our Stories creative writing group are activities run for refugees and asylum seekers by Jean York and her team, meeting in the S2R premises. As well as offering free tickets to our events, we have partnered with these groups on projects such as Creative Minds, part of which involved the creation of a stunning handmade banner for our 2020 event with our Patron, Lemn Sissay. A second banner was created for our Festival Hub in 2023.
