Increasing numbers of schools are coming to visit the Cathedral as part of their learning in diverse subjects including RE, History and Art. In 2007, over 4000 pupils came on 115 planned visits - a rise of 26% from 2006 and 75% more than in 2002 when the Department was founded. There has been a significant rise in the numbers of secondary pupils visiting the Cathedral due to the new philosophical and ethical issues trails which have been designed to interest older pupils. In fact, there is now such a demand that we are now unable to accommodate all the schools that wish to book and sadly we have to turn some away.  

One solution has been to establish a team of "Children's Guides", so that multiple trails can be offered to different school groups at a time. Several of our Education Volunteers have been kind enough to offer their services and are currently undertaking a period of training. If you have experience of working with children, preferably in an educational setting, and would like to train to be a Children's Guide, please get in touch.

One special event I would like toadvertise is World Book Day, March 6th. We have invited Children's Poet Jan Dean to lead workshops for school children at the Cathedral. Jan's poems are published all over the place. She's in lots of anthologies and her last collection Wallpapering the Cat (Macmillan) was chosen by the Poetry Book Society (Children's Poetry Bookshelf) as Best Single Poet Collection for Spring 2003. The following poem was written by a group of pupils at the end of Jan's visit to Chester Cathedral:

On March 6th we shall also be relaunching our Children's Poetry Competition. I'm sure that the students that attend Jan's workshop will find plenty to inspire them at Manchester Cathedral!