We’re delighted to announce we have been awarded a Creative Writing in Schools grant for £600,000 by Arts Council England, to expand our current national creative writing programme in the North and the South West.
This fund enables First Story to make creative writing available to every pupil in England by scaling up our activities significantly. We will extend our current programme of creative writing residencies across the North and South West, increasing our national spread and serving the communities most in need in those areas. In doing so, we will test new programme models to engage even greater numbers of schools in our regions. We also intend to launch a National Writing Day aimed at every school-age child, and thereby intend to sharpen and amplify the profile of creative writing on the national arts and educational agenda.
We’re thrilled that the project enables us to work in partnership with organisations across the regions to share expertise, collaborate on writing events and initiatives, and signpost opportunities for pupils to develop their talents and for teachers and writers to enhance their practice through Continuing Professional Development. We will partner with a range of charitable, arts and business organisations across the country including: Teach First, Brunswick Group, Frontier Economics, Arvon,Royal Society of Literature, CapeUK, RIO, Hull UK City of Culture, Literature Worksand LKMco.
Over the three-year project, First Story will serve 1,500 young people directly in the North and the South West, and an additional 10,000 young people will engage in public events and other extension activities in schools. First Story will publish 76 anthologies and run 140 professional development sessions for teachers and writers, providing 4,730 hours of training. Over 25,500 new stories and poems will be produced.
Find out more about the Creative Writing in Schools grant here.
What’s it like at the Residential?
