Primary Schools Outreach
From 2023 to 2025, Arts Council England has funded a three-year project run by Hay Festival to enable disadvantaged and underrepresented children in the English counties bordering Powys to express their creativity and engage in arts and crafts activities inspired by leading children's authors and illustrators.
The project has explicitly addressed barriers to participation, from financial disadvantage and language difficulties to isolation and special educational needs. The clear aim has been to ensure that creativity and cultural engagement are accessible to all.
The project was devised in three parts, focusing on early years, youth groups and emerging young talent.
Early Years project
Hay Festival's Early Years project (2023–2025) took creative practitioners into schools in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire to deliver creative workshops with pupils in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Each year of the project has built effectively on the last, embedding and expanding the creative offer across different counties and communities, building cultural connections where they are most needed.
Children in Early Years took part in creative workshops that included story and art activities before and after Hay Festival at their schools. These pupils, along with a class of the schools’ KS2 pupils, were invited to spend a day at Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye, to enjoy live events with authors and illustrators including Sophy Henn, Joseph Coelho and Nicola Davies. All these pupils had the opportunity to meet authors and the Early Years pupils received a free book.
As with Hay Festival's Programme for Schools, the Early Years project has proven popular with teachers, parents and students alike and is greatly valued by the participating English state schools.
“It was so good I’m giving it a double thumbs up! Really high!” – Pupil feedback (aged 4)
“Without these sorts of opportunities our children would simply not ever be exposed to the arts beyond what we teach at school... the project has been a lifeline, a beacon of light for our children and the school.” – Teacher feedback, Worcestershire
“So many of our parents and children would not ever have the opportunity or means to provide and experience such an event as the Hay Festival.” – Teacher feedback, Herefordshire
The project demonstrably built cultural resilience, fostered a love of reading, and ignited creativity among some of the region's most under-served children and young people. Despite ongoing financial constraints preventing schools from self-funding, the overwhelming feedback is a testament to the project's profound and lasting impact. It leaves a legacy of enriched school curricula, inspired staff, and a generation of young people with broadened horizons and a stronger sense of their own creative potential.
