Arvon is pleased to announce that it has been named a partner in a new Creative Writing in Schools programme led by First Story, that will enable over 190 pupils from the North and South West to come to Arvon centres over the next three years. This includes support for First Story’s National Writing Competition for state secondary schools, enabling the winners to come on a dedicated Arvon week.
First Story was awarded a £600,000 grant by Arts Council England to expand their current national creative writing programme in the North and the South West. As well as the work with Arvon, over the next three years the project will serve 1,500 young people directly in the North and the South West, and engage an additional 10,000 young people in other activities including anthology launch events, creative writing events in universities and museums, competitions and national writing initiatives.
Ruth Borthwick, Chief Executive of Arvon: “Arvon is delighted to be working in partnership with First Story as part of the Creative Writing in Schools initiative. This funding will enable Arvon to deepen our existing partnership with First Story – we share a belief that writing can transform lives, and that there is dignity and power in every young person’s story. We are both dedicated to extend the opportunity to those young writers in schools serving low-income communities, by fostering the creativity and communication skills of teachers and pupils, enabling them to express themselves freely with confidence.”
First Story will also work with charitable, arts and business fields including Teach First, Brunswick Group, Frontier Economics, Royal Society of Literature, CapeUK, RIO, Hull UK City of Culture, Literature Works and LKMco. They will launch a National Writing Day aimed at every school-age child, to sharpen and amplify the profile of creative writing on the national arts and educational agenda.
Find out more about the programme
