“World Book Day is a personal highlight for me every year and this might be my favourite yet. It’s on days like today that we really get to showcase and celebrate the powerful imaginations of our pupils and the importance of reading and books in their education.”
Miss Fisher, Head of English
Our whole school theme for this year's World Book Day was Detectives and Mystery with the children’s English lessons and activities throughout the day centred around the theme.
Of course, many children were inspired to dress up as their favourite detective or mystery novel character, whilst others picked a character from their favourite book! All our staff and pupils, from Nursery to Year 8, took part. Across the school, stories were read and listened to, books were debated and characters were created.
At break time, many famous book characters were in attendance for our Mystery Treasure Hunt. The whole school was invited to collect treasure maps from the library and use them to collect literary clues before taking their findings to Headmaster Mr Barker. Each clue was a riddle which related to a famous literary character. Year 7 happy helpers also zoomed off to read stories to the Pre-Prep children and our year 6 pupils had ‘mystery’ lessons where they entered a crime scene with a series of clues that they had to solve to uncover what crime had been committed by whom. All was not what it seemed….
Local crime novelist and parent, Kate Medina, ran an inspirational workshop for our Year 8 pupils.
Head of English, Miss Fisher, said: “Kate spoke about how she became a published author as well as the writing process. The talk was so full of helpful hints and tips that pupils took up their pens immediately and began writing their own openings to a mystery novel. It’s moments like these that really stay with children and inspire them to get writing; it was wonderful to see.”
In assembly, Year 3 pupil Maddie stunned us all reading her national prize-winning piece that revealed a gift for storytelling beyond her years. Our Year 8 volunteers then performed character monologues they had written to a huge Millennium Hall audience who had to use their powers of analysis and deduction to work out who each character was. It was brilliant to see the children’s faces light up and the hands start waving as the penny dropped.
“The Year 8s did so well to bring such diverse characters as Willy Wonka and Gandalf the Grey to life. I was blown away by their creativity - everyone was transfixed,” said Miss Fisher.
Thank you to all our pupils for raising money for the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) earthquake appeal set up to help all those who have lost their homes and livelihoods in Turkey and Syria.
Thank you too to all our teachers who hosted ‘fireside readings’ in break times throughout the week for both our Pre-Prep and Prep school pupils. Pupils cosied up by the fire in the inner hall and got lost in the wonderful world of fiction mysteries. This saw a special appearance from none other than Nancy, our Headmaster’s black Labrador, who joined the children for an entrancing tale!
