Once again, every Wester Hailes S1 student had the opportunity to attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Charlotte Square Gardens. Our first years met and chatted with authors on book themes varying from Elizabeth Laird’s grim and scary story of life as an orphaned teenager inside a Middle East refugee camp, to Maz Evans’ hilarious books about how the immortal Greek gods are fitting in to our modern day society! Students, each, received a £3 book voucher from Bailie Gifford, the book festival organiser, towards the cost of buying a book. Each S1 class met different authors on different days of the week – Robert Muchamore, Theresa Breslin and Chloe Daykin also signed books, chatted, encouraged …and had selfies with our students!

We thank the Wester Hailes Education Enhancement Association charity (WHEEA) for subsidising the cost of the book festival events; without this money, we would be unable to keep the cost of the student contribution to £1. S1 students will make use of their festival experiences in their September Technologies lessons and in their English writing lessons this session.