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Authors in Schools Programme

FAQs

If you are interested in bringing our programme to your school please get in touch.

The Programme is run by Stephanie Marcus, a trustee of the Jewish Literary Foundation, and Philip Skelker, a retired head teacher.

Events are held throughout the school year to secondary and sixth-form aged students. Alongside London Jewish schools such as JFS, Yavneh College, Immanuel College and Hasmonean, speakers have presented at Wimbledon High School, More House, Streatham and Clapham High School, Channing School, St Margaret’s, Bushey, St James’s Girls and Boys School, Queen’s Gate School, The Archer Academy and The Urswick School.

The most significant breakthrough in the programme’s development was our recognition that both authors and schools have extremely crowded schedules and that consultation between them is the best way to decide the days and times available for an Authors in Schools event.

Authors either speak at the school in person or by way of a virtual platform. The expertise schools have acquired in using virtual platforms has played a major part in raising the number of Jewish Literary Foundation school events held each year and given greater access to overseas speakers.

The foundation introduces authors presenting at our annual Book Week festival who will be of particular interest to pupils and teachers, and provides administrative support for the programme.
No charge is made to the school. The Authors in Schools Programme leaves it to the schools and authors to decide whether there is a sale of the author’s books. The only payment authors receive is their travel expenses, which are met by the Jewish Literary Foundation.
Authors are imaginative, enthusiastic and knowledgeable and recognise that books make a major contribution to individual lives and to the well-being of society. In short, they share the aims which prompted us to launch the Authors in Schools Programme.
All schools, maintained or independent, are eligible. Jewish, Catholic and Anglican schools are amongst those that hold yearly Authors in Schools events, and we cherish the hope that we will be able to increase this diversity.
Generally, authors speak to pupils in Years 10 to 13, with an emphasis on the Sixth Form. Some Successful events have been held for pupils in Years 6 and 7.

An appropriate member of staff – perhaps a librarian or a member of a school’s enrichment team – contacts the organisers of the Authors in Schools Programme and identifies the author they would like to speak to their pupils. We will contact the author and ask them if they are happy for their email address to be given to the member of staff who has made the enquiry. When the member of staff receives an email from us saying that the author would be pleased to talk at the school they should contact the author to find a mutually convenient date and time for the event.

Please do not contact an author before the organisers have consulted them. The Book Week festival is a major cultural event and an invitation to speak at it is recognition of an author’s achievement. The prestige of the festival helps us to recruit authors for our events.