Next Year's Dates:12-21 September 2025
Celebrating Literature & The Arts by the Sea
The
Charlotte Aitken Trust
Schools' Week 2024
23-27 September
"As one of the largest schools outreach programmes in the UK,
our aim is to delight and inspire the readers and writers of the future."
Our amazing Schools Week, run entirely by volunteers, has come to a close with thousands of excited children taking home a book to keep following an author visit.
Our dedicated team of 27 stewards traversed Torridge and North Devon taking 25 authors into 72 schools and libraries to deliver 213 inspirational events.
In addition to the books given to primary school children, as part of our Books at Home Scheme, we were also able to provide Secondary School libraries with copies of books by their visiting authors.
None of the above would have been possible without the financial support we received to subsidise events and purchase books.
We would like to extend an enormous thank you to all our supporters:
The Charlotte Aitken Trust - Appledore Book Festival - Torridge Councillor Grants
Fullabrook CIC - Travel Chapter - North Devon Carpentry - Bideford Bridge Rotary Club - Bideford Rotary Club - Ilfracombe Rotary Club -Ilfracombe Round Table - Barnstaple Round Table - Ilfracombe Lions Club - Ilfracombe Compass - Barnstaple Soroptimists
Many of the authors gave vivid accounts of their own lives, focussing on their very ordinary
backgrounds and describing how they followed their dreams and ambitions.
In every case, the stories were aspirational yet grounded in real life accounts. These were inevitably followed by many interesting questions and answers.
Books at Home Scheme
A new development has been our Books at Home scheme. Thanks to generous donations we have
been able to supply hundreds of our visiting authors’ books to all participating schools to furnish
the school libraries and to enable some children to take home and own a book - possibly for the first time.