In 2025, thanks to generous donations from our sponsors, we provided for local schools
- 4 free author talks
- 2 free creative workshops
- over 250 free books for North Norfolk school children
- the free-to-enter North Norfolk schools’ poetry competition with a Booker-prize-winning judge
- subsidised transport to Wells Maltings from the University of East Anglia for our Sunday morning poetry events
In association with the Norfolk Rivers Trust we promoted engagement with the natural world through:
- 2 hands-on nature workshops for primary-school children
Thanks to The Fishmongers’ Company’s Fisheries’ Charitable Trust and The Holkham Charitable Foundation as well as our partnership with the Norfolk Rivers Trust, our schools’ programme was free to all the schools taking part.
Author talks and free books
Children from years 3, 4, 5 and 6 at Wells-next-the-sea Primary and Nursery School, Langham Village School and Burnham Market Primary School enjoyed author talks by Iona Rangeley (below) – author of the Einstein the Penguin books about the first book in her new series – Cecily Sawyer: How to be a Spy.
Alderman Peel High School‘s Year 8s visited Wells Maltings to hear from Natasha Hastings, author of middle-grade historical fantasy series ‘The Miraculous Sweetmakers‘ (below) and to receive a copy each of the first book. Natasha talked to the children about writing and how to create worlds, plots and characters. Natasha then led a group of English Literature A Level pupils from Gresham’s School in a creative writing workshop.
Creative workshops
Gresham’s School Year 12 (sixth-form) English Literature A Level students came to Wells Maltings for a creative-writing fiction workshop run by Natasha Hastings.
Gresham’s School Year 10 GCSE artists came to Wells Maltings for an art workshop run by James Cockburn, where the children drew large still-lifes using charcoal and talked about 20th-century artists.
Nature workshops
Primary groups from Burnham Market Primary School and Langham Village School took part in river-fly survey workshops on the banks of their local rivers – the Burn and the Stiffkey. The Norfolk Rivers Trust’s Tim Fisher taught the children how to catch, identify, count and release insects – while explaining how changes in the invertebrate population will track the health of a river.
Above: NRT’s Tim Fisher with Langham Village School pupils. Each class spent two busy hours beside the river, engaging by hand with miniature monsters and the mud, weed and stones amongst which these creatures live their lives.
Many thanks to our generous donors who enabled all the above:
If you are interested in taking part in the schools’ programme in future years or you would like to know more about becoming a sponsor or making a donation, please send an email to:
info@literatureandlandscape.org
Literature & Landscape 