Urban Tree Festival

The Urban Tree Festival is an annual, community celebration of trees: their benefits and beauty, their majesty and magic, in cities, towns and all urban environments. Events, celebrations, walks, talks and storytelling are held across London and the UK, bringing all communities together to share their enjoyment of trees and nature. The Festival runs from mid to late May each year.

As part of the Urban Tree Festival, The Royal Parks invite you and your KS2 students to get creative and speak out about the impact of urban trees during the climate emergency.

Your school can sign up to receive a free set of curriculum-linked 'tree'mendous workshops that will hone your students' skills in poetry, creative and descriptive writing, research posters, and art.

The workshops aim to engage and inform members of the public of the importance of urban trees during the climate emergency.

Each participating school will receive lesson plans, supporting introduction videos and student workbooks. Your students will spotlight a species of tree, found within the Royal Parks from the classic Oak to the famous Weeping Beech.

We'll then share your favourite pieces of student work with our tens of thousands of followers on social media and our website. Students who submit their entries will also receive Urban Tree Festival: School Challenge certificates.

Workshops include:

Story (suitable for all KS2)
Students will learn how to structure stories and use adjectives to build their own character. Using the workbook they will consider the different parts of their stories before beginning a creative writing task.

Poetry (suitable for all KS2)
Following the video and workbook, students will analyse a poem and learn about rhyme, rhythm, syllables, haiku's and acrostic poems before turning their hand to becoming poets.

Art (suitable for all KS2)
Using the mediums of pencils, paint and paper, students will be led through activities considering scale, size, shape and the use of light to add depth to paintings. They'll then be tasked with creating an inspirational work of art around the theme of climate change and your school's tree species.

Research Poster (suitable for upper KS2)
In this more challenging workshop, students will be conducting their own research into their school's tree species to create a research poster. They'll learn about reliable sources, scientific drawing and will practice descriptive writing. They'll then need to gather and organise their research into an informative poster.