Current Initiatives
We are working with several partners on initiatives to encourage translation and celebrate multilingualism in schools. The art, craft and business of translation is a central part of our work at NCW, and we’re excited to be developing projects with partners to bring this insight to young people.
Since 2023, we have extended our annual partnership with the Stephen Spender Trust to bring Multilingual Creators to KS2 pupils in Norfolk and Suffolk, working with a growing partnership of 10+ schools.
Young Creative Translators 2026: Take a trip to Brazil…
We are currently invitating Norfolk Year 3–4 teachers, teaching assistants, and librarians to participate in a one-day training session (29 January 2026) on using creative translation and multilingual writing activities in your classroom. The training will be delivered by literary translator Romy Fursland.
Join creative translation experts, the Stephen Spender Trust and the National Centre for Writing for a day of creative translation training. You will learn how to lead your class through a six-part project to translate the beautiful Portuguese picture book Along the Tapajós, by award-winning writer and illustrator Fernando Vilela, alongside poems by Brazilian poets.
Read on to learn more about the programme, please click here. To register your interest, please email Hannah Garrard, Senior Programme Manager at [email protected] or call 01603 877177 (Monday–Thursday) to discuss.
This training is free, thanks to Arts Council England. Your school will be reimbursed for a day of teaching supply cover.
Past teachers have reflected:
- ‘The children really enjoyed and engaged well with this project. It was an amazing project to deliver at our school since 50% of our pupils are EAL’
- ‘It gives a different slant to learning a new language, and gives it more of a purpose, as they can communicate with their peers in their home language’
- ‘Best CPD session I have ever attended!’
The kids really enjoyed themselves, particularly having a chance to use and celebrate their own languages in the classroom. It was great for the students to see where their language skills could take them.
Multilingual Creators 2020: Pilot
A creative translation training programme led by the Stephen Spender Trust, the UK’s leading charity for multilingual creativity in schools. The partners are National Centre for Writing, New Writing North (Newcastle) and Comma Press. It is co-funded by these organisations, Arts Council England and Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
The partners are working with 12 translators and writers in Newcastle upon Tyne, Greater Manchester and Norwich who have been trained to deliver a blended course of workshops for young people in their region on the theme of ‘Me and My City’.
‘Me and My City’ saw young participants producing and sharing pieces of translation and creative writing that incorporate the languages spoken by them and their communities, as well as those they are learning at school.
Multilingual Creators builds on over a decade of education programmes coordinated by the Stephen Spender Trust.
Creative Translation Ambassadors
A partnership with the Queen’s College Translation Exchange, Oxford, the British Centre for Literary Translation and the National Centre for Writing, training university students to run translation workshops in schools.
‘The British Centre for Literary Translation has worked closely with QTE for a number of years now. We are grateful for the expert advice, guidance, materials, teaching and support given, which has allowed us to run our own successful annual Creative Translation in Schools programme with local young people’.
Learn more about the initiative, here.
Children, Young People & Communities Fund
You will help people of all ages discover and share their stories through workshops, outreach in schools, and more.
