A calendar of literacy events is something I’ve wanted to sink my teeth into for a long time. I’ve always felt it would be useful to have and to share with all staff. I think it will put an end to all those last minute attempts to conjure up activities and resources for special whole-school events and will definitely save me from missing those all important competition deadlines.

I decided to produce the calendar in my role as co-ordinator for writing on the Literacy Team. I hope that these easily digestible diary dates will enable all school staff to further promote literacy and engage children in meaningful, purposeful reading and writing for pleasure. I do not expect everyone to participate in everything, but rather teachers can pick and choose what would suit their class and curriculum topics. Of course, we will all join forces for larger events such as World Book Day and National Writing Day.

The following table provides a map of the academic year with a range of key calendar events. It includes national days or weeks and a whole host of school competitions and events. I’ve also added some key children’s literature award dates as it’s always good to keep an eye out for new and exciting quality texts.

Feel free to download and print my Literacy Calendar 2018-19 and add the events to your own calendars. Use it with your Literacy team, at an INSET or even a whole staff meeting so that everyone can be involved in promoting pupils’ love for reading and writing across the whole school. All I ask is that you please also share a link to this blog in return.

Download a printable PDF version of my Literacy Calendar 2018-19 for FREE.

You can also now download the Word version of my Literacy Calendar for £1. This will allow you to edit, add and amend the document to suit your own classes and schools.

The Literacy Calendar 2018-2019 

*Where possible, I have included precise dates but some dates were not available at the time of writing.

Other dates to look out for:

• Never Such Innocence Writing Competitions aim to engage children and young people across the world with the centenary of the First World War through poetry, art and song. 2018-19 competitions TBC. https://www.neversuchinnocence.com/competition-landing-page/
• ‪Young Writers Competitions (all year round) @YoungWritersCW https://www.youngwriters.co.uk/competitions-options
• Henry Williamson writing competition is every 2 years (next one will be in 2020) https://www.henrywilliamson.co.uk/schoolswritingcomp-117/schoolswritingcompetition2018
• Reader’s Digest 100 Word Stories @readersdigestUK‪ (2019 dates TBC)
• Into Film ‘Film of the Month’ (all year round) https://www.intofilm.org/competitions/1

 Did you find this blog post useful? Do you have any other dates to add? Hit the like button below, add a comment or find me on twitter. I’d love to hear your thoughts.