Celebrating International Women’s Day
International Women's Day is celebrated every year on 8 March, and is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.
The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality, and for 2025 has a theme of Accelerate Action. This places emphasis on the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality and calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face, both in personal and professional spheres.
Women in Leadership: International Women's Day writing challenge (ages 14+)
Our Words for Work Women in Leadership programme in partnership with Lancôme challenges inequalities in employment opportunities for young women and non-binary students through a series of workshops and panel events, plus resources for teacher-led sessions.
As part of this, we've developed the resources available to download below to inspire your students' own writing in Key Stages 4 and 5 (ages 14+) on the themes of:
- What message do you want to share to celebrate women?
- Can you find a way to take action for gender parity?
Resources for younger students (ages 3 to 14)
At the start of March, when spring is just around the corner and daffodils are blooming, it's time to celebrate International Women’s Day. What better opportunity to deliver thought-provoking literacy activities exploring inspirational women?
Our classroom resource offers lots of literacy activities and ideas to mark this annual celebration including:
- Book recommendations to read aloud and generate discussion with pupils in Early Years, KS1, KS2 and KS3/Early, First, Second and Third Level (ages 4 to 14)
- Suggestions for speaking and listening activities including storytelling inspired by role models
- Writing ideas from poetry to science experiments
Download the resource from the list below. The activities are designed to be adaptable for teachers working across different age ranges, and for the time you have available.
Research
Our research has explored the relationship between aspirations, literacy and gender for young people and adults; find out more in our report.