Adam Guillain

Awards

• George's Amazing Adventures series: Spaghetti With The Yeti shortlisted for the Sheffield and Portsmouth and The Evening Standard Oscar's First Book Awards as well as the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Treats for a T.Rex Junior Design Awards.

Organisations

• Society of Authors
• Scattered Authors' Society
• General Teaching Council
• National Association of Workshop Providers

Details

Virtual Author Visits with a Difference

While there’s nothing quite like a traditional author visit where I can meet and work with you all in person, virtual author visits are environmentally friendly, lots of fun and much more affordable! While I often make virtual and traditional author visits myself, because my wife Charlotte is also a writer with whom I often collaborate, we also offer joint visits. These visits are unique in that they offer schools the opportunity to meet two authors on the same visit and access a much broader range of fiction and non-fiction titles and expertise.

Whether it’s a free twenty-minute storytime session with one class, a day of fiction and non-fiction workshops for multiple classes, or as your regular authors in residence, just drop us a message and let’s start planning!

Free Virtual Author Visits

A free storytime session usually lasts around 20 minutes. As long as the audience is made up of at least twelve students, there is no maximum group size.

What we do in a free session

After saying hello to the class, either Adam or Charlotte – perhaps even both of us – shares one of our books with you all. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, we usually have a powerpoint presentation with all the illustrations which can fill the whole screen while we read. This might take ten minutes, after which we often spend the remaining time answering the students' questions. We are happy to vary the format in any ways that suit your setting better.

Other Virtual Author Visits

Authors in Residence

Charlotte and Adam are currently ‘authors-in-residence’ with a number of schools in the UK and Europe. In this capacity, we collaborate with literacy co-ordinators to create a bespoke plan of workshops and visits for classes throughout the school. These workshops will create contexts for further study, creativity and writing as well as promoting reading and writing for pleasure in your community.

PLEASE NOTE: Virtual sessions should not be recorded without our prior permission.

Traditional Author Visits

Adam and Charlotte visit schools all over the world, sometimes as individual writers and sometimes together. Usually their days begin with an assembly to the whole school, including nursery and foundation, where they would perform their latest literary-festival style event.
After the assembly, whether they are visiting together or as individuals, Adam and Charlotte can offer a wide range of workshops, with all kinds of focus for different year groups or classes:

• Whether it’s traditional fiction or stories that link to historical topics, Adam is well-known for teaching storytelling skills that create a platform for further writing and topic work. His workshops are interactive, accommodate all kinds of learners across the whole age-range and are a bucket load of fun!
• For younger children, Charlotte focuses on fiction, performing any number of picture books while involving and engaging children with puppets and dressing up clothes.
• For older children, Charlotte can also offer non-fiction titles, such as The Street Beneath My Feet and The Skies Above My Eyes, exploring how she plans, researches and writes a non-fiction book and including a quiz for lots of interactive fun.

Charlotte can also run bespoke non-fiction or writing workshops for different age groups, looking at relevant curriculum topics, such as habitats, space, life cycles, Anglo-Saxons and Shakespeare. Let her know what your topic is and she’ll see what she can do!

INSET Training

As co-founder of Storytelling Schools (www.storytellingschools.com), an international organisation dedicated to raising attainment in literacy, Adam is often asked to deliver a twilight training session following an author visit. Adam starts by telling a story that every teacher can use with their class. Here he demonstrates the HEAR MAP STEP SPEAK technique, considering calibration and extension. Following this, depending on time and the focus of the session, Adam explores how to elevate language as pupils move towards shared writing, identifying narrative foci and how to plan writers’ and language objectives.

“Adam’s INSET sessions are lively, imaginative, practical and insightful. An outstanding teacher of teachers.” Pie Corbett – poet, writer and independent educational consultant

Other Information

Both Adam and Charlotte have full up-to-date DBS Enhanced Certificate and £10 million public liability insurance.

Testimonials

"An inspirational storyteller and writer who demystifies the creative process by sharing clear, multi-sensory strategies and techniques accessible to all." Chris Smith, Director of Schools Development, Story Museum, Oxford.

It is rare to find someone gifted enough to inspire teachers and pupils from Foundation to Year 6 but Adam is such a person. All these workshops were absolutely right for the age group - their content and approach were motivating and accessible for all children. Adam was encouraging and engaged the children in the process of writing. Staff have commented that they learnt more about the craft of writing after watching Adam for half an hour than they had over several INSET sessions."

Headteacher Oakmere Primary School, Northants.

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