.3 WORLD BOOK DAY 2023

The Gryphon School celebrated World Book Day in style, from book swaps, to listening to opening chapters of new books to some of the staff dressing up as book characters.

This year we tried a new activity, where all Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 students listened to the openings of four new books during their lessons: Rise Up – Ordinary Kids with Extraordinary Stories, Wrath by Marcus Sedgwick, Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah and The Thief Who Sang Storms by Sophie Anderson. These openings were pre-recorded by Mrs Bendell and Mr Fernandez so that students could hear the books read by an expert reader and follow along with a copy on the whiteboard – a technique that literacy guru, Alex Quigley (author of ‘Closing the Reading Gap’) champions. Whilst listening, students rated the openings and completed a booklet to be handed in at the end of the day, with the possibility of winning all four books! Students were really engaged by this approach, and we have many hundreds of entries to read through. Winners will be announced very soon!

Another fantastic way of celebrating the wealth of reading material out there is our huge book swap, this year held in the Learning Hub, with hundreds of books to choose from. Students can bring in books they no longer want and then swap them with new ones. We encourage students to look for different genres and writers, rather than stick to their favourites – this is a great way to do this for free. Likewise, our amazingly well-stocked library is constantly updating its stock to include the newest fiction and non-fiction books. Students visit the Learning Hub fortnightly in English lessons and can also go during a tutor time.

Lastly, some of the staff opted to dress up as book characters, from the assorted creatures from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland to Douglas Adams’ Arthur Dent. We managed to get lots of smiles from the students of The Gryphon School during the day – happy World Book Day 2023!

Mrs Bendell