Education

the Cathedral Wood and the Towers family; • we were also featured in the Yorkshire Post and as part of the CofE Green Health Showcase.

Eco Church Gold Award: • we reviewed the overall environmental credentials of the Cathedral and agreed we Most of our work is ongoing; we would love to hear from anyone who would like to be more involved in any of it; Canon Mandy is convenor.

Maggie Myers, Director of Education and Visitors

For the first eight months of 2021, with no physical visits, the Education team continued to create and extend their digital resources for schools and families. These resources ranged from EYFS/KS1 to KS5 and included materials for Candlemas, Lent and Easter, modules on saints featured in the Cathedral’s windows and historical figures connected with the Cathedral, and a Remarkable Women unit. There were also digital resources to support virtual schools’ linking and Holocaust Memorial Day.

Following on from the success of the online services provided for schools in 2020, an Easter Service and a Year 6 Leavers’ Service were both created in 2021 and were once again well-received, at a time when schools were still unable to visit the Cathedral. The services were created using the talents of the wider Cathedral team, the Zephaniah Trust, our choristers and contributions from local Church of England schools. Online youth pilgrimages, designed for children and young people aged from 5-16, with differentiated activities and resources, were also launched in October 2021.

Happily, after an 18-month absence, we were delighted to welcome back children and young people to Bradford Cathedral for educational visits. From September- December we hosted 536 children and young people with 137 accompanying adults, from 1 nursery, 7 primary schools and 5 secondary schools, as well as students from Bradford University. For all of them, it was their first “school trip” in over 2 years and therefore an extra-special and meaningful experience. It was wonderful to see their faces and hear their comments as they entered the building! Other activities for children that returned after a long absence were half-term family activities in October and Messy Advent and Messy Crib, all with strong attendance figures and enthusiastic participants - with a mixture of familiar faces and new families, joining us for the first time.

The autumn term also saw the start of a new educational initiative, a “Heritage Student Volunteers” project, involving students from Bradford University who are studying, or are interested in, archaeology and heritage. The students spend time at the Cathedral learning about heritage aspects of the building; once trained, they will act as heritage guides at a number of events for the general public.

We have also widened our offer in terms of physical visits: our Wellbeing units are now fully planned, resourced and available for schools to use. We have also received half of the funding for our Living Timeline educational project, which means that work can begin on costumes and replica artefacts so that we can hopefully launch this educational workshop experience in the 2022-23 academic year.

Recent feedback:

“A great visit that was hugely informative and led by welcoming and knowledgeable guides who built great relationships with student and staff – clearly experienced at working with young people.”

“The team were brilliant. Each aspect they led was very informative and pitched at exactly the right level… The staff all commented on how well the children had responded and how inclusive the input was…”