Ed Boxall - AIM High Writing
Ed
Boxall
AIM High Writing
Summary
Age range All Ages
Books Yes
DBS Checked Yes, registered with the DBS Update Service
Curriculum Checklist Includes:
- Oracy & Fluency
- Critiquing & Appreciating Literacy
- Grammar & Vocabulary
- Composition & Editing
- Teamwork
Ed is a writer, illustrator and performer.
About Ed
Ed is also a freelance teacher and has been running workshops, residencies and special events based on his writing and illustration for 15 years.
Ed’s poetry collection ‘Me and My Alien Friend’ was published by Troika in 2018, and was chosen for The Summer Reading Challenge in 2019. Ed’s 2021 gloriously illustrated picture book Carried Away with the Carnival slips between poetry and prose to create a joyous celebration of carnival. His most recent book We the Wild Ones is a delightfully unconventional collection of poems, stories and art about all things wild.
Ed’s passion for poetry shows in his illustration work- he has illustrated for some of the UK’s top children’s poets such as Brian Moses, Roger Stevens and James Carter.
Ed’s AIM High Writing Days
Ed’s creative writing days always include a fantastic mix of performances, writing games, mini activities and a longer project where children complete a poem which they both illustrate and perform to the group within the day.
What If My Nose Could Fly? - Nonsense ‘fun with phonics’ Poetry Workshop for Key Stage 1
This playful workshop takes off from The Castle of Um—but also includes one of Ed’s stories for younger children- Carried Away with the Carnival. It’s a lively, inclusive session full of music, rhythm, movement, and plenty of joining in.
Children dream up nonsense carnival creatures and characters with drawing and collage, and invent new words to name and describe them, delighting in playing with word sound and textures. Ed provides lots of large print, phonic fragments for children to build words with to create their own picture-poems. This builds on the use of ‘alien words’ in the KS1 curriculum.
The workshop can be adapted for KS2, and even staff. You are never too old for a bit of nonsense!
“What a tremendous session—the children loved it. Their writing was joyful. I’d highly recommend Ed for performances and workshops in schools.”—Pie Corbett, author of Talk for Writing
Finding Your Voice Workshop - Poetry Workshop for Key Stage 2
A KS2 workshop inspired by Lily’s journey to ‘finding her voice’ in The Castle of Um. Children explore both their spoken and written voices—experimenting with tone, mood, and meaning through poetry, movement and spoken word games and performance.
In the workshop, Ed draws on the way children naturally express themselves through pretending-play. Using accessible poem scaffolds and playful prompts, they give voices to the voiceless such as mountains, seas, forests, and clouds.
Through this creative play children find their own voice. They then apply this to how ‘voice’ in poetry creates feeling, atmosphere and meaning.
Wild Portal Objects Workshop
This workshop explores how objects can be portals to creative adventures.
The session uses Ed’s poems ‘The Spell Makers’ and ‘The Forest out of Time’ as starting points.
Ed provides a choice of amazing objects as inspiration- old camera apparatus, shells, pebbles, bits of clocks etc. It’s often not clear what the objects are. Children make a word-collection in response to the object and imagine what powers the object might have. They then write a narrative poem about their relationship to the object. They must explore how the object changes, helps or challenges them.
A Selection of Ed’s Books
We The Wild Ones
We The Wild Ones is a magical collection of stories, poems and art all about ‘The Wild’. The poems and stories are for 6 to 12 year olds and anyone who loves nature, magic and all things wild. 144 richly illustrated magical pages.
Carried Away with the Carnival
A little boy goes to the carnival with his grandad and gets carried away on a fantastic adventure including bright dragons, thundering drums, a mermaid and the giant scary strong woman.
Ed has often told this story in schools and has now turned it into a colourful picture book that children everywhere can enjoy.
It's perfect for sharing- full of detail, excitement, a little danger, and a lot of love.
Picture Book for 3 to 8 year olds
Bookings
To book Ed Boxall please contact
aimhigh@caboodlebooks.co.uk
Ed also offers visits to schools and other settings, click here for more information.