On Thursday 3 March all of our pupils came together to celebrate World Book Day. To mark World Book Days 25th Anniversary, the children and staff came to school dressed up as a character from their favourite book. The day was filled with a schedule of exciting, celebratory activities to encourage and promote reading for pleasure.
The children joined thousands of others in dressing up and celebrating this international event. There were some very imaginative costumes, including Mary Poppins, the sisters from Little Women, the BFG, the Gruffalo and David Walliams Billionaire Boy. During the week, the pupils have enjoyed engaging workshops with guest Authors, Cliff McNish and Paul Dowswell, which gave them an insight into the professional world of writing.
World Book Day is a charity on a mission to help change childrens lives by making reading together and reading for pleasure a habit for life, a wonderful celebration of authors, illustrators and books. It is designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading and marked in over 100 countries all over the world. Social and shared experiences are a key part of World Book Day celebrations and importance is placed on making the day fun, whilst also giving the children the opportunity to talk about what they are reading, with dressing up being a popular way to encourage this. Teachers have commented that it has proved key in encouraging reluctant readers to engage with this special day, whilst feedback from children is that it helps in picking up reading recommendations.
The excitement of the day was our exchange with JK Rowling on Twitter. Many of the children have been inspired by Rowlings literature, resulting in a small army of wizards arriving at the school gate on Thursday morning. In response to a photograph of three of our pupils dressed as Harry Potter, JK Rowling commented, Voldemort stands no chance whatsoever against this triple threat!.
Mr Rob Andrews said, We encourage a love for reading in every child, our expansive library is home to thousands of books, giving all our children the opportunity to read from a variety of authors in an array of genres. Events take place over the whole year to instil reading and engage the children’s imagination, including reading challenges, Author visits and more’.
