Canterbury Children's Literature Festival
Schools Programme
Schools and youth groups are a huge part of our work at Canterbury Children's Literature Festival. Each year we curate and deliver a programme of author and illustrator visits and interactive story based workshops to help spark and develop a love of stories in all their forms amongst children and teenagers of all ages.
We believe strongly in the power of action, and getting children involved in all of the ways that stories can be created. Our events are always interactive, focused on getting inspiration and imaginations sparking and creativity flowing.
In our first year, we ran a one day schools' programme in 4 primary schools. In 2026, we ran 5 days of school events with 14 authors and illustrators providing 39 sessions to 16 schools and a youth group. Our festival was always designed to reach as many children and teenagers as possible, especially those from families who might not access an event like ours on their own, and so our schools work is even more vital. We want as many children as possible to experience the excitement of stories and get to peek behind the scenes of story creation, and we are building up our year-round events as well as strengthening and developing our links with local schools. If you're interested in hearing more, and being first to hear about our 2027 schools programme, please make sure you're signed up to our mailing list.
Things we do year round...
Running monthly - every 6 weeks at Chapters Coffee & Books in Sturry, this is currently primarily aimed at adults but crafts and activities for children are provided as well as a smaller children's book swap!
Free, booking advised due to space limits.
Coming soon!
An out-of-school space for anyone aged 10-16 to stretch their writing skills, for experience writers and those who are just starting. We will learn all sorts of different writing skills and hopefully be visited by the occasional published author as well! Nobody will have to read their work out if they don't want to, and it's designed to be silly and fun.
This interactive 45 minute workshop introduces children from age 4+ to the elements of story as we spin for a setting, treasure hunt for the different elements of story and practice using their amazing imaginations to put everything together in their very own book!
The current version we are running of this is the medieval storymakers, heavily inspired by Canterbury's medieval locations and including a medieval character creation station.
Cost: Donation/Pay as you feel
Fundraising for the Festival
Our festival is created for the community and designed to be as accessible as possible, with as many events as possible provided for free or pay as you feel, including the entire schools' programme. As a festival, we fundraise to be able to pay authors and provide resources for our events, and we rely on our local community to help support the continuation of our events. If your school could do some fundraising for us, we would be forever grateful, and we've put together some fundraising ideas and resources to help you out!