Our local schools celebrated World Book Day (Thursday March 7th) in style using a huge variety of creative and inventive activities to engage pupils and to help foster a lifelong love of books and reading. There were poetry slams, Readathons, book quizzes, book swaps, and author and illustrator talks. Staff and pupils dressed in fantastic costumes depicting favourite book characters and even in some cases their favourite ‘wow word’ or adjective. Let the schools tell you in their own words what happened.
For World Book Day at St Michael’s Primary School, Aldbourne, we held our annual Poetry Slam. We encouraged all children to enter, be it individually, in pairs or small groups. They all spent some time finding or even writing a poem. Children performed their chosen poem (or nursery rhyme) in class and those with the most votes went through to the Poetry Slam final on World Book Day, complete with judges from our local community. Each year group also learnt and performed a whole-class poem in the Poetry Slam final. It was a brilliant afternoon!
At St John’s whole school activities included a 6-word novel competition, and a hidden books competition to guess the book title from the image. There were daily book quizzes for each tutor group and a Scholastic book fair. Year 7 students shared stories with 6th Form students and participated in carousel lessons with 10 tables each with different book challenges. Years 8 and 9 students enjoyed short online author talks in their English lessons. Finally, classroom doors around the school turned into book covers.
Glamourous, Clatter, Clumsy, Carnivore, Discombobulated, Curious and Creative -not a reworking of the 7 dwarves but some of the ingenious characters to walk through the gates of Ogbourne CE Primary on World Book Day, as everyone dressed up as ‘wow words’. What a joy to see all the teachers and children make so much effort for this day. We had a fun worship where the children were able to share their ingenious costumes with each other. Children then returned to class where they did some writing based on a story from another culture. After break it was Storytime where children got the chance to hear two stories chosen and read by staff.
World Book Day was more than just a day at Burbage Primary School, our celebrations spanned a few weeks! The children took part in a sponsored Readathon which ran all day from 9am until 3.30pm, the challenge was to keep the reading going in our newly refurbished library all through the school day without any breaks! We have been fundraising to add more non-fiction books to our school library and to make sure we have the latest titles on offer. English Lead, Emma Miles, said, “The children were amazing – especially the Reading Champions who manned the library through break and lunchtime. They also covered transitions and every member of staff was involved in some way. It was lovely to have a mix of Guest Readers/peaceful silent reads and exciting buzz of buddy reading between classes too!”
The whole school enjoyed a fantastic illustrator talk by Andy Ellkerton where the children learnt about the illustration process and had a go at drawing their own with his guidance. During the session, the children made a new school book cover together and we hope that this will inspire the writing process! We feel that illustrations can bring a story alive, it is also so important that our readers use their imagination to paint a picture in their head when they read, that is part of what makes reading so special.
Key Stage 2 enjoyed an author talk by Ross Montgomery and Key Stage 1 are looking forward to a talk from Eileen Browne who is coming into school next week. On World Book Day itself, the children took part in a parade if they chose to dress up, everyone enjoyed a speed-dating style book talk session and they were then able to choose a story session from around the school. The parents and family members were welcomed into school to see our fabulous exhibition of illustrations in the school hall.
Marlborough St Marys enjoyed celebrating world book day. The pupils and staff came to school dressed as an adjective of their choice. We had a good variety ranging from sparkly, sporty, smart, glamorous, to comfy, spotty etc. In classes we designed book tokens, played guess the adjective, shared stories and some of us even joined Michael Morpurgo for his live online event #bornfree. We also had great fun visiting classrooms all around the school to take part in a fun book quiz and many children also took part in a book swap.
Pupils at Kennet Valley Primary School celebrated World Book Day with an eco-friendly theme. The whole school read the book ‘Oi! Get off Our Train’ by John Burningham which is about endangered animals. They each state why they should get a place on the train due to the problems they encounter in the wild, such as climate change. The children were given the task of coming to school dressed as an animal, but in an eco-friendly way.
Mrs Byford, Reading Lead, said, “We encouraged the children to create their costumes out of things they would normally throw away. We didn’t want parents to have to buy outfits which might not be worn again, so wanted it to be as eco-friendly as possible.”
Each class was tasked to write their own version of the story, with children researching animals for themselves that would deserve a place on the train due to the decline of their species.
“It was amazing to see the fantastic outfits that had been made. The school was full of tigers, butterflies, giraffes and so much more, everyone had put in so much effort to create their costumes,” said Katie Mallinson, Headteacher.
The school hope to make the books available to parents so they can share in all of the fantastic work the children have done.
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