Schools dress up in literary style to mark World Book Day

Children at Chestnut Street School in Ruskington celebrated with a bedtime story theme. Teacher Rebecca Hall said: “In order to encourage a love of reading we all wore our pyjamas and families came to share stories and read with their children.”

Each year group had a book to focus on and were lucky enough to all take a copy of that book home with them. They had a busy day investigating crime and getting rid of the ‘evil pea’, making vegetable smoothies, thinking about ways to be resilient and how to look after themselves, and imagining what it would be like if our pets could talk.

Leasingham St Andrew’s School settled down to a good read. In class assembly they found out a few facts about the history of the day and then at various times pupils downed pens and pencils and picked up their favourite reading books.

At Ruskington’s Winchelsea School the challenge was to dress as a single word. This could be a noun, verb or adjective and the children were encouraged to think of unusual vocabulary.

Words in costume included ‘rainbow’, ‘construction’, ‘hilarious’, empowerment’, ‘chocolate’ and ‘rocker’!

A special assembly heard a fabulous 500-word story from one of the Year 6 children which is entered in a national competition organised by Radio 2, and throughout the day children enjoyed guest visitors reading stories, visits to the local library, puppet shows and fun classroom activities.

Children did a range of lessons about their favourite books including designing front covers, writing blurbs, synopses, book reviews and designing and making bookmarks before each getting a free £1 book token to spend on books of their choice or to exchange for some free ones offered in book shops.

At Rauceby School, staff and children dressed up and had a reading café, where parents came in and read with their children and enjoyed a drink and a cake.

Sarah Singleton from Usbourne Books took along her book stall for parents and children and the school held a competition for children to decorate/dress up a potato as their favourite character.

Older children at Carre’s Grammar School entered into the literary spirit too. Students and staff were invited to dress up as book characters.

There was The Boy In the Dress, Doctor Who, Fantastic Mr Fox and the Woman in Black prowling around the school. Year 7 and 8 students also took part in a sponsored read, and a cake sale was held for the charity ‘Read For Good’ which provides books and story tellers for children in hospital.

Children at Sleaford’s William Alvey School had a great time for World Book Day.

They dressed up as their favourite book character, took in an object from their favourite book or a word that is associated with that book.

Headteacher Stephen Tapley said: “World Book Day is a chance for all schools to focus on reading. We acknowledge that some parents find the dressing up element a little more frustrating, but the essence of the day is about celebrating books, authors and reading more generally.”

The younger children were inspired by a performance from the Magic Carpet Theatre company and Year 6 pupils opened a ‘Star-books’ reading café to relax and read their books.

Mr Tapley added: “We also received a pack of 100 books from The Sun (Free Books for Schools Scheme) and our Year 4 staff put together some bedtime story bags for the children to take home.

“I brought in my all-time favourite book, read when I was 10 years old.”