Project overview
Celebrated annually on 1 and 2 November, Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a vibrant and deeply meaningful tradition rooted in both Catholic and Aztec beliefs. While it originated in Mexico, it is now embraced by communities across the globe, including in the USA, the UK, and beyond.
The celebration is marked by joyful remembrance, as families honor the lives of departed loved ones through colorful and heartfelt rituals. Altars (ofrendas) are adorned with candles, marigolds, photos, and favorite foods of the deceased.
Tombs are lovingly decorated, and street events —featuring music, dance, and symbolic imagery like sugar skulls—bring communities together in a spirit of love and respect.
Contents
Media coverage and publications
- Death and Grief Education
- Cultural Appropriation and Sensitive Interculturality
- Inspiring Language Learning Through Día de Muertos
- Schools and Mexican Communities: Learning Together
Training Details and Registration
- What did teachers and PGCE trainees think of the CPD session?
- What did pupils think about the activities inspired by Jane Lavery's research?
Toolkit copyright and terms of use
Research ethics and participation
About Dr Jane Lavery
Dr Jane Lavery, Associate Professor in Latin American Studies at the University of Southampton, is leading a large-scale research project on the Mexican Day of the Dead, working closely with Mexican communities and artists based in the UK.
Her research explores how this vibrant tradition is celebrated by Mexicans living abroad and examines its cultural relevance for non-Mexican communities. She also investigates how the festival can be meaningfully integrated into diverse contexts such as schools, civic spaces, and social and healthcare settings.
A published author in Gender and Cultural Studies, Dr Lavery is particularly passionate about this project, which has attracted media attention—including interviews on BBC News and Radio. She has written two academic articles and is co-authoring a book with Professor Nuala Finnegan, focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico, Ireland, and the UK (Palgrave Macmillan 2026).
Media Coverage and Publications
Read Jane's article, 'How the Day of the Dead can help schools teach about grief.' in TES
Watch Jane's appearance on BBC South Today
School Engagement
Lavery’s research-led school programme offers CPD, teacher training and curriculum-linked activities exploring intercultural understanding, “Halloweenisation”, commemorative practices, and death and grief education..
Why Teach Día de Muertos
Death and Grief Education
Death touches every school community, and children encounter it in different ways, including the loss of a friend, a relative or a beloved pet.
From September 2026 revised Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance requires primaries to teach about change, loss and bereavement in age-appropriate ways, with secondary schools building on that foundation.
Lavery’s project is among the first to explore how culturally grounded approaches might support schools in implementing this requirement, complementing existing resources through creative engagement with Día de Muertos, loss and memory.
This approach supports death and grief education across-curricular collaboration across e.g. PSHE, MFL, English, Art, Food Technology, RE and literacy while broadening pupils’ understanding of how loss and remembrance are experienced across cultures.
For further discussion of how Day of the Dead can support teaching about death and grief within PSHE, see Jane’s article in TES (formerly the Times Educational Supplement).
Cultural Appropriation and Sensitive Interculturality
Drawing on debates around cultural appropriation, Dr Jane Lavery argues in her publications that British and North American mediascapes (Appadurai, 1990) have contributed to the commercialization and misrepresentation of Día de Muertos. This process—sometimes referred to as the “halloweenization” of the tradition—strips the celebration of its local roots, commemorative purpose, and religious significance, reinforcing the misconception in Britain that it is merely a “Mexican Halloween.”
Inspiring Language Learning Through Día de Muertos
The decline in GCSE language uptake in the UK is well documented, with modern foreign languages no longer compulsory in many schools. While engagement with Día de Muertos cannot reverse this trend alone, Lavery’s school activities explore how creative and intercultural learning can inspire interest in languages.
Currently, the Spanish MFL curriculum tends to focus on Iberian topics, with Latin American content often treated superficially. Día de Muertos is taught in some British schools—particularly in MFL, Art, Design, and Photography departments—but provision remains inconsistent.
Schools and Mexican Communities: Learning Together
In Mexico and North America, Día de Muertos is widely celebrated in schools, reflecting the size and cultural influence of the Mexican-American diaspora. In the UK, the Mexican community is also vibrant and active, and many families continue to celebrate the tradition.
School activities aim to foster cultural inclusivity, respectful exchange and community collaboration by inviting local Mexican artists and families to participate.
CPD and Classroom Resources
Choose research-led CPD to develop your teaching, a toolkit for classroom delivery, and creative opportunities for pupils.
The offer is for primary and secondary teachers and PGCE trainees across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, with resources for Years 7–13 and materials adaptable for primary schools. Resources can be used within any department or collaboratively across PSHE, MFL, Art, History, English, Religious Studies, Citizenship, and Design and Technology, amongst others.
Sensitive Teaching Across All Subjects
All materials use PSHE-aligned principles, regardless of the department using them. Activities are scaffolded and age-appropriate, using distancing techniques such as fictional scenarios and cultural examples, agreed ground rules, and no expectation of personal disclosure to support sensitive discussion of death, grief, loss and memory.
CPD: What You’ll Explore
Drawing on Lavery’s research into Día de Muertos in Mexico and its global adaptations, the training explores:
- Cultural and historical context: the tradition’s Catholic and Indigenous roots, meanings and commemorative practices.
- Cultural appropriation and representation: challenging the misconception of Día de Muertos as a “Mexican Halloween” and supporting approaches that help decolonise the MFL curriculum.
- Identity and community expression: the festival’s sociopolitical significance, grassroots activism and relevance to diverse communities.
- Creative classroom approaches: calavera skull poetry, art and storytelling, with curriculum ideas for KS3, GCSE and A-Level that extend beyond predominantly Iberian topics.
- Collaboration: opportunities to work across departments and engage with local Mexican artists, families and communities.
Death, grief and remembrance: using Día de Muertos as a culturally grounded example to encourage open, respectful conversations about death, grief, loss and remembrance, recognising different beliefs and experiences.
Training Details and Registration
Free annual CPD and PGCE training is available online and in person. The two-hour bilingual session is delivered in Spanish and repeated in English, welcoming educators with different levels of Spanish proficiency, including those outside language departments.
For training dates, registration or pupil activities, contact j.e.lavery@soton.ac.uk.
What Teachers Receive
- Free CPD session
- Spanish language and/or subject refresher
- Access to a copyrighted toolkit of classroom resources
- New approaches to teaching Día de Muertos
- Opportunities for cross-curricular collaboration
- Approaches to support motivation, wellbeing and confidence discussing death and grief
- CPD certificate of attendance/achievement
Pupil Activities and Competitions
Activities aim to support creativity, motivation, critical thinking, empathy, intercultural understanding, collaboration and confidence discussing death and grief.
- UK-wide altar video competition, running since 2022 in collaboration with the Mexican Embassy in the UK. Read about the 2022 winners in the Bournemouth Echo.
- Ireland/UK-wide calavera poetry initiative, in collaboration with the Mexican Embassy in the UK, including UK-wide skull poetry workshops and short story competitions. Pupils’ submitted poems and stories will be considered for a literary compilation published by University of Southampton Press. First volume: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/511268/ . Further details about the calavera initiative.
- Creative workshops and live lectures, delivered online or in person in schools.
- Certificates of achievement for participating pupils.
The Classroom Toolkit
Beyond the CPD session, Lavery’s copyrighted toolkit provides adaptable materials for Spanish language, intercultural learning, and death and grief education.
- Teaching materials: CPD materials, lesson plans, worksheets, language specific lesson, teacher guides and pupil booklets.
- PSHE resources: KS3 materials and lectures, adaptable for primary schools and other year groups.
Presentation and lecture resources: A-Level presentation sheets and links to recorded and live lectures. - Creative activity guides: altar video competition support and calavera poetry activities to prepare pupils’ contributions to a compilation.
- Cross-curricular guidance: ideas for subject-specific teaching and cross-departmental collaboration across e.g. PSHE, MFL, Art, English, Religious Studies, Citizenship, Design and Technology, and other departments.
- Sensitive discussion guidance: practical classroom support using the PSHE-aligned principles outlined above.
Toolkit registration details are provided after CPD. Teachers can deliver activities independently, arrange workshops led by Lavery, or co-deliver them with her, online or in person.
Feedback and Testimonials
CPD delivered with the University of Southampton, the Langton Language Consortium and the Spanish Embassy’s Education Office (Consejería de Educación Española) received excellent feedback. Participants rated two 2025 sessions 4.87/5 and t4.44/5 and on July (2026) at 4.83/5
The research examines how creative engagement may contribute to empathy, intercultural understanding and confidence in discussing sensitive topics.
What did teachers and PGCE trainees think of the CPD session?
‘The Day of the Dead is not a well known topic and to be able to be more competent to speak about this with students in the target language, using the resources, is invaluable. As a non-specialist in Latin American culture, the sessions also provided me with amazing CPD in order to enhance my own knowledge, but also to be able to express this clearly and in an interesting manner with my own students in the target language.’
'Helpful to revamp our ks3 unit.'
'Interesting and insightful, particularly the debate around cultural appropriation.'
‘I attended this (CPD) session and found it, and the material provided by Lavery here or during other lectures and workshops at my school useful for my own teaching. I have also read her peer-reviewed articles and found these useful in terms of how to deliver class content to children in ways which provide new understandings which steer away from stereotyped interpretations and allow children to engage in meaningful discussions and activities around the practice, matters relating to death and commemoration and cultural appropriation.'
‘My colleagues and I can't wait to implement lots of the suggestions.’
‘Increase in cultural capital for the teachers of Spanish.’
‘Motivation, inspiration, new insights.’
‘Job satisfaction, renewed sense of purpose and creativity.’
‘Motivation, inspiration, new insights.’
What did pupils think about the activities inspired by Jane Lavery's research?
‘I felt independent and enjoyed the celebration.’
‘The activities definitely make learning more fun and enjoyable.’
‘It was a good activity because everyone was involved, we were still learning but it was fun.’
‘We all did different things to add to making the video including some people brought food, or made decorations or made the video but we all sang the song in the video celebration.’
‘It was fun making the altar’
‘I did know some things about Day of the Dead, but I didn’t know about it in so much detail as I do now, for example I learnt that you put the person’s favourite food on their altar. This is the first time I have been part of a project like this.’
‘It was a collaborative process.’
What did teachers think about the activities inspired by Jane Lavery's research?
'It has made us think a bit more about the context and how to embed it properly in our curriculum.’
‘We do a Yr 8 DOTD clay project for a term in art (…) It was good the Year 7s were introduced to the ideas now as they can build on this in their Year 8s.'
‘I have changed my existing Day of the Dead unit to be more focused on separating it from Halloween and highlighting cultural appropriation.’
‘I will look into using Professor Lavery's article on Halloween in our English department for text analysis.'
'It's fostered collaboration between departments and it has made students see language from a different perspective.'
‘Following Dr Jane Lavery’s research-led initiative, our students designed the elements that they wanted to include for their video, under my guidance. This was the first time that the department had been involved in such a project. All Spanish classes from Years 7 through to 13 (700 pupils!) got involved in the project creating paper cempasúchil flowers, papel picado, calavera skulls, corazones de milagro, nichos and writing satirical calavera poems. Some of the materials were sourced from the Dorset Scrapstore in order to comply with the competition’s recycling requirements. The Year 11 students then put the altar together including pictures of the Queen, her favourite foods of chocolate and afternoon tea and other traditional elements.’
‘The students got involved from the beginning and gave 100% effort. All this video is theirs, not much teacher help apart from some encouragement to win!! They have put it together technologically speaking as well as constructing the altar, getting pictures, making crosses/flowers/skulls out of recycling materials, baking, cooking, singing, reciting a poem, painting faces and couple of students played the background music on the piano and guitar. As a teacher I have loved the challenge.’
‘It has been the first time and we have really enjoyed it. We will definitely do it again.'
Toolkit copyright and terms of use
Copyright covers Lavery’s research-led resources and toolkit curation, not Día de Muertos or its associated creative expression. Teachers may adapt materials for teaching only, acknowledging Lavery’s work. CPD and toolkit materials, including lecture and workshop recordings, must not be shared with others or published online or on social media. Third-party resources are attributed to their authors.
Research ethics and participation
The CPD and toolkit form part of Lavery’s research. Therefore participating schools must follow the project’s ethics guidelines.
To access the CPD and toolkit, participants must complete a consent form and read a participant information sheet that contains information about the CPD and the data that Lavery will collect.
Teachers who wish to take part in the CPD training, or access a recording of the training, and/or benefit from the toolkit of resources, must complete consent forms and read the participant information sheets.
For specific project activities, such as the poetry and video competitions and the collection of anonymous feedback, pupils will need to complete the appropriate consent forms. Parents or guardians will also need to opt in and read the relevant participant information sheets.
The head of school will be required to sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) and provide gatekeeper permission. Lavery will provide all the necessary documentation.
Pupils can also take part in other general activities delivered by teachers or Lavery without formally participating in the project. These activities do not require project consent forms or parental or guardian opt-in.
