Home > Education > Working together

Working together

Developing new audiences

We work in partnership with various expert organisations to encourage new groups to experience the festival, including those from marginalised communities.

If you would like to collaborate with us in order to bring new groups to the festival, please contact Janet Smyth, Children & Education Programme Director, at janet@edbookfest.co.uk.

How we fit in with the Curriculum for Excellence

The Book Festival is committed to supporting learning across the sector, and our activities fulfill a variety of the new curriculum's objectives. Let us help you to create effective contributors and confident individuals!

  • Our schools events are designed to help pupils engage with words and ideas. The question and answer format which we use allows pupils to develop their critical thinking, evaluation and analysis skills.
  • To encourage long term engagement and promote discussion, we have developed a variety of classroom resources. Pupils can delve deeper into subjects using the classroom activities and useful websites featured in our RBS Schools brochure, as well as accessing previous Book Festival events on our online media archive.
  • Our programme covers a huge variety of subjects, offering pupils cross-curricular experiences with events on: art & design, citizenship, creative writing, the environment, geography, history, literacy & language, literature, maths, media studies and science.
  • Meeting authors and experiencing live literature will give pupils a deeper understanding of Scottish and world cultures, as well as the chance to engage with a wide range of texts.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how our events can help to reinforce the Curriculum for Excellence objectives, please email schools@edbookfest.co.uk.

Glow - the national intranet for education

We aim to broadcast Book Festival events live over the Glow network each August to enable pupils and teachers to watch the events live in their classrooms and participate in the Q&A sessions at the end of each event.

Previous events broadcast in this way include:

John Boyne, talking about his fantastically popular novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and sharing proof copies of his latest novel - not yet even published.

Dedicated academic Dr Mel Gibson, who spoke about how to use graphic novels in the classroom. If you missed the broadcast check out Dr Gibson’s brilliant graphic novel resource created specially for LTS.

Michelle Paver’s event for pupils from P6-S2 where she talked about the inspiration behind her thrilling Stone Age adventure books, the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.

To watch and participate in future Book Festival events via Glow sign up to the Edinburgh International Book Festival Glow Group. If you’re not already a member of Glow, visit the Glow in your area webpage of the Glow Scotland website for information on how to join.

Literature in Learning

The Book Festival is a member of Literature in Learning, a joint initiative led by Scottish Book Trust which involves most literature organisations in Scotland. We collaborate to support learning professionals in developing creative uses of language with children, as well as disseminating examples of good practice. LiL exists for the benefit of teachers, librarians, writers, storytellers, poets, playwrights, education advisers, cultural co-ordinators, university staff and parents.

Download the useful Literature in Learning ABC guide to organisations and services across the sector.