Thanks to generous funding support from the Marks Family Charitable Trust, the Association of Jewish Refugees and The Blue Thread, the National Literacy Trust is once again teaming up with award-winning author Tom Palmer to produce free resources which can be used in the classroom or at home, to help schools commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day (Thursday 27 January 2022).
The resources are designed to be used throughout the week beginning Monday 24 January 2022, and are suitable for use with students aged 10 to 14 (Upper Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3).
We are delighted to announce that, thanks to this funding, we were able to provide 100 schools with a free pack of copies of Tom Palmer's book, After The War. All packs have now been allocated and despatched.
Resources comprise
- A PowerPoint presentation, to introduce the story and resources to students
- A story, Them, written specially for Holocaust Memorial Day in five instalments by Tom Palmer (teachers can download and read the story, or watch Tom read the story using this YouTube link)
- Five videos and five worksheets to support and inspire pupils to write their own responses
- A teacher guide with ideas and sources to support your delivery and children's writing
- A free online Q&A event with Tom Palmer and Mala Tribich, a Holocaust survivor.
Watch Tom Palmer's workshop videos
Watch our live event
On Monday 24 January 2022, we ran a free live event with Tom Palmer and a Holocaust survivor. You can watch the recording of the event here.
Submit students' work
These resources build on themes and characters from Tom's title After The War, which follows children liberated from concentration camps arriving in the Lake District. After The War has been nominated for the 2021 Carnegie Book Award.
Schools will be able to submit their pupils' writing inspired by these resources. These will be considered for publishing on the Lake District Holocaust Memorial Project website. You can view samples of last year's writing. Please send students’ work to sport@literacytrust.org.uk, with ‘HMD writing’ in the subject heading. Our deadline for submissions is Friday 11 February 2022.
More resources
Further Holocaust Memorial Day resources, including free CPD for teachers, can be accessed from UCL's Centre for Holocaust Education. These include resources relating to After The War.
To support your commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day you may also be interested in our resources from 2021.