A landmark event in the school’s calendar, World Book Day returned this year and was yet again celebrated by pupils, students and staff at home and in school.
Events and competitions took place across all areas, including the Senior Phase Library, Primary Phase, English Faculty, EAL Unit, Careers Department and Sixth Form to name just a few!
Within the Senior Phase Library, managed by Mrs Dewhurst, pupils and students were offered a wealth of activities within their Google Classrooms including author live streams, book tokens, podcast episodes with authors, new ebooks and audiobooks and the much-anticipated launch of the Carnegie Book Award. Year 8 Pupil Librarians also took part in a Google Meet with Mrs Dewhurst and staff were each given a commemorative badge to wear for the day, as well as celebratory sweet treats thanks to Mrs Dewhurst.
Within the Senior Phase’s English Faculty, competitions were held for pupils in all year groups including the ‘Masked Reader’ and a bookmark design competition. Pupils and students were also encouraged to share their ‘Shelfies’ across the day. In the EAL (English as an Additional Language) Unit, pupils were granted access to a range of books so they could discuss World Book Day and engage in private reading.
Over in Singleton building, Sixth Form students shared their own book recommendations throughout the day, with the theme of ‘books that inspire’ and the Careers Department shared themed literature that tied in with National Careers Week.
In Year 7, Head of Year Mr Hart spoke to pupils about the importance of reading and highlighted the range of activities on offer, whilst in Year 8, Mrs Mariner covered a mixture of topics including the need for printed materials for face to face learning. Further up the school, Year 9 pupils were treated to a reading of Dr Seuss’ ‘Oh the Places you’ll go’ and Mr Cordwell discussed Primo Levi’s ‘The Periodic Table’ book with Year 11 pupils.
In our Primary Phase, staff launched a competition to design a potato book character and entries remain open for this until Thursday 11th March. Whilst undertaking some exciting World Book Day tasks over the day, pupils (whether at home or in school) were also encourage to wear their pyjamas, as part of the ‘pyjamarama’ theme. Each pupil was also treated to a live read-along with their teachers from 1-1.15pm and were encouraged to explore the range of tasks available via Google Classroom.
Whilst very different to previous years, we are delighted that many of our pupils, students and staff truly took the time to celebrate the world of books!
