'Meet The Author' Programme

Wolverhampton Grammar School organises a series of 'Meet the Author' visits every term to which we invite local state primary and secondary pupils.

Working with Authors Aloud UK we have been able to attract some very notable authors, poets and illustrators to WGS and hundreds of local school children have benefited.

Wolverhampton Grammar School’s 'Meet the Author' events aims to bring literacy and reading to life. Students get to hear first hand from the authors about how they starting writing, how they write, where their inspiration comes from and their advice to young readers and writers. The authors also read extracts from their books and are available to sign copies of their books (at reduced prices).

Aims

Through our series of 'Meet the Author' visits we aim to encourage a love of reading amongst our young people. The aim of these activities is not just for the benefit of our own pupils but also shared with a much larger pool of children within our local community. Transport to and from school is provided where required and sometimes funding towards the purchase of books.

Background

The opportunity was identified by Head Librarian, Zoe Rowley and through her connections with Authors Aloud UK and Publishing Houses, the School is now seen as a 'go to destination' for such events, thus attracting some really big names in the literary world and offering this opportunity to pupils across the community to be inspired by their work. The programme of Author Visits has been running since Zoe's appointment in 2014.

Resources

The Author Visits are normally hosted at the School, however for larger scale visits such as World Book Day we use Grand Station in Wolverhampton which allows us to invite up to 1,000 children from surrounding schools. 

Impact

All participating children complete a feedback form after each event. Partner schools are continually reporting back how these Author visits have helped them to establish a reading culture in their respective schools and they are keen to visit time and time again. Not only has the number of schools accepting invitations to author events increased, but also the number of children participating from those schools.

The effectiveness of this project is measured from feedback not just from participating schools, but from the authors too. Authors appreciate the opportunity to engage with a wider audience and the pupils also have the opportunity to connect with students from other schools. 

Pupil Involvement

A wide range of ages is covered by this partnership work benefiting children in KS1 up to KS4.

In 2021-22, our programme provided 19 events to a total of 2,172 pupils from 47 local schools. In addition, a virtual event with Jeff Kinney in November 2021 reached 80,000 children from 800 schools.

Frequency

This is an ongoing activity and in the region of 6 events are organised each academic term.