This image sums the week up perfectly – the joy and light that books bring, but also the fact I spent most of the week in bed exhausted! I’m not going to lie – LitFest was perhaps the most stressful week of my job so far, but also the most rewarding.
Our KS3 Lead set the whole event up, then left me to it whilst she went on maternity leave! “It will be fine”, she said, “You’ll enjoy it” she said…! Little did I know that it would blow my ‘To Do’ list completely out of proportion! But don’t let me put you off, this blog post is actually designed to encourage you do to something similar in your own school, and hopefully learn from my experiences so it runs as smoothly as possible for you.
So where to begin…..what actually is LitFest? Well, it’s a week long literary festival (that I nicknamed LitFest as I thought it would sound good with a hashtag….#LitFest…..cool, right?!) It took place in the summer term so all the exams are out of the way and was designed to celebrate all things literary. Sounds easy, right? Luckily for me, my colleague had already done all the paperwork in terms of getting the event approved, sorting out the budget and booking all the authors. All I had to do was to ensure it ran smoothly. And did it…..? Well, I’ll use that age old metaphor of the swan: on the outside everything seemed calm, but underneath the water the swan (me…) was working and panicking furiously!
You can’t begin to imagine the logistics of a week-long school event. We had over 5 different authors during the week delivering whole year group assemblies and workshops with various groups of students. Yes, the schedule was done for me, but I had to organise getting students to the hall, inviting students to workshops, telling teachers where and when to send students, coding it on SIMs, sending letters home to parents informing them their child was attending a workshop etc. The list of jobs was endless. So I did the only thing that any decent teacher would do. I bought myself a pretty notebook! Obviously this would help me to be more organised…
I also did a lot of work promoting it and with the help of our fabulous marketing lady, we created some fab posters, a logo, and a banner. I was so proud of how good it looked. (But of course, even with my pretty notebook to keep me organised, I completely missed off one of the author’s names – sorry Mark Grist!)
I used the school’s twitter as well to build momentum, tagging the authors who were taking part as much as possible (I’m a huge fan of twitter). I got posters on every classroom door and sent a letter home to parents.
Due to the timing of the event, it meant the first day of the week was also our Year 6 Transition Day, so our first author – Dan Freedman – delivered a talk to the whole cohort and each student received a free copy of one of his books in an envelope with a letter from me detailing how we strongly value the importance of reading at our school, along with a book review poster for them to complete and bring back with them to share in September. I think this is a really valuable message to share with our new students (and parents) to help promote reading.
So, when the week arrived, I had my schedule printed out for each day and sent reminder emails to those staff involved in bringing students to the hall. I’d booked refreshments and a room to meet and greet the authors. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get cover for the whole week, so I had to rely on colleagues to do some of the meeting/greeting and staying with authors during workshops. I had the timetable for the week printed on A3 and displayed above my desk. I felt ready for what was about to come.
There were, of course, a few hiccups – the biggest being that 2 authors, yes TWO authors pulled out a couple of weeks before the event (stress levels most certainly piqued at that point!) – For some reason, students got mixed up about which workshop they were supposed to be attending, our Book Fair people ended up in the canteen, rather than in the library. And yes, I went home exhausted and mentally drained at the end of each day. But do you know what? Seeing the entire of Year 8 completed engrossed by Mark Grist’s performance rap poetry, having a disengaged Year 10 lad tell me that he’d written something he was proud of, watching Year 9 students attempt erasure poetry and taking it home to show their parents – made it all worthwhile.
Am I doing it again this year?
You bet I am! I will definitely learn from last year’s experience and I’m currently in the process of writing this year’s proposal. There are authors I want to rebook, and some new talent that I’d like to take part – also hoping to link into our Character and STEM specialisms. I also want to make sure that all students are involved in some way. So just a small To-Do list then?! I think this calls for a new pretty notebook……!
Here are my top tips if you want to run a similar event at your school:
- Plan well in advance
- Choose authors that are relevant and engaging for your setting (and tap into those budgets! Pupil Premium etc. as the costs soon start to mount up)
- Book it into the school calendar and give staff plenty of notice
- Draft letters ready and then adapt them to the different workshops
- Get your admin team onside to help you with distributing the letters for students/parents
- Start promoting early – use twitter where possible so you can tag the authors and then they can retweet to help with publicity
- Create a daily schedule – especially if you are delegating tasks, make it clear what needs to happen where and when
- Be prepared for things not going to plan – and try not to worry about it too much
- Make sure you follow up with students to continue their interest and engagement – don’t let it become a ‘flash in the pan’
- Most importantly – enjoy the experience with the students
- Oh…and buy yourself a notebook!
Leading Literacy 