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Schools and Community Work

Community Work

Our Festival runs a wide range of community and partnership projects across Huddersfield.

Schools

We regularly send authors into schools to give talks to the students or run workshops. This has included virtual school visits during the Covid-19 outbreak. If your school would like to find out more, contact [email protected]

Our annual Stafflex Free Family Day at North Huddersfield Trust School comprises activities, face painting, performance and film – and it’s all free!

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

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.

Local partners

HLF often partners with other local cultural organisations and social enterprises; these have included: Communities Together/Radio Sangam, Hoot Creative Arts, Huddersfield Civic Society, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, S2R (Support to Recovery) and Woven Festival.

We have also partnered with our local football club on several events for schools and families.

“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

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