MORE than two thousand pupils across 51 York schools are set to get a special present this week.

Working with City of York Council, the University of York has distributed goodie bags to every York primary school who will hand them out this week to pupils in receipt of free school meals – more than 2,000 children across 51 schools.

It's all thanks to York Festival of Ideas who, working with REACH – the York Cultural Education Partnership - have created the Bags of Creativity project, helping to make the Festival’s events and activities more accessible to a wider local audience.

York Festival of Ideas has worked with 20 local partners to develop and produce the bags which are packed with a range of creative resources.

In normal times, the festival, which runs from June 8-20, offers a host of in-person, hands-on workshops for children to enjoy. The bags will ensure all children have the chance to continue to engage with the festival.

The bags contain a colourful array of exciting activities and resources from home experiments with bubbles, to origami and beads for constructing models of neurons. Activities will link to free online festival content.

Festival director Joan Concannon said: “This exciting initiative signifies our passionate commitment to widening participation in our home city in parallel with our determination to broaden the Festival’s audience across the world.

“It is an example of the festival’s ability to embrace novel modes of inclusion, allowing us to reach a wider audience while remaining steadfast to our ethos to educate, entertain and inspire audiences of all ages.

“We are thrilled to join REACH in delivering this imaginative project which will give more young people the chance to engage with the Festival and nurture their creative potential. Our thanks to the University of York and the York Museums Trust for their support, and our partners across the city for their enthusiastic involvement in this project.”

Chris Edwards, chair of REACH, said: “In these challenging times, we need to find even more inventive ways to help schools, parents, carers and families get creative at home. We particularly want to help those families who aren’t confident or able to access the brilliant resources we have in York.

“This fantastic project in partnership with York Festival of Ideas is an exciting extension of our work to help all young people in our city to sing, dance, act, make music, perform, experiment, design and create.”

James Rourke, head at Lord Deramore's School, said: “Alongside the basics of reading, writing and maths, creativity and the arts are an absolutely vital part of a child's education that can sometimes be overlooked - especially with academic 'catch up' being the main issue discussed in the media post Covid.

“These new bags will help reach those families who often struggle to finance and resource the creative pursuits regularly accessed by our more advantaged children. In addition, the online support and resources will provide teachers with further ideas to make their lessons even more engaging and enjoyable.”

In a separate initiative, York residents who are unable to watch online events at home can book a computer at Explore Libraries across York, where free Festival ‘earbud’ headphones are available.