In association with Authors Aloud UK, we put together a fantastic selection of authors, illustrators, storytellers and poets for you and your pupils to meet.
Suitable for both the primary and secondary ages, these events aim to support literacy and
to inspire children’s reading and writing by giving them the opportunity to meet and talk to these creative people. Authors can either visit your school in person or conduct the visit via a virtual platform.
If the author is coming to your school, we can also arrange for copies of their books to be available for sale, so that children can have them signed.
How to register
- Tower Hamlets schools should register via SLA Online
- Other schools may contact us
How to book
- We provide a list of authors, poets, storytellers and illustrators and range of dates they are available. The list covers the financial year you are buying into the package.
- The booking form asks you to indicate your order of preference and preferred date for an author and then Authors Aloud UK will work out the programme and confirm dates with you once all booking forms have been received.
- The earlier you submit your form, the more likely you are to get what you ask on the dates you ask for!
- For our scheme to work and to keep the cost down for schools, an author / illustrator / poet / storyteller needs to do a number of workshops in one day, typically 9am-10am at one school, 11.30am – 12.30pm (or 11am – 12noon) at the next and 2pm-3pm at the third. Therefore, we need to collect information from all schools participating in the programme at the same time and for schools to be flexible in terms of their requirements.
- You can book more than one of the slots in a day if you wish.
- Once the programme is confirmed and distributed, it is possible to book at short notice, but only if slots are available. We will also advertise spare slots.
What is not part of the programme
- Within the author visit package, we are not able to arrange individual dates for individual schools, we are not able to contact specific authors other than on the list, and we are not able to arrange a date with a school and then look for other schools to “share” the day.
- If you wish to organise author visits yourself, you can contact Authors Aloud UK or the individual authors directly and pay separately. If a whole day is required, it might be more cost-effective to do this.
Preparing for the author visit
- Please ensure we have the name and contact details of the person in the school who will be hosting the author on the day.
- Authors Aloud UK will provide schools with information and materials to support them in preparing for / hosting the author visit and following up / evaluating it
- We can also arrange for books by the author etc. available for sale on the day of the visit and ask that you ensure the children know and bring money. We have a standard letter that you can send home.