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Year 8 World Book Day
‘We are Readers’ was this year’s strapline to celebrate World Book Day at PGS this year.
And what a celebration it was! After two years of lockdowns, this year’s event felt like a much needed coming together of the entire school community to enjoy the pleasure of the simple book and dress-up!
Our local independent Hayling Island Bookshop was onsite all day with their pop-up stalls with a selection of fiction for pupils from Year R all the way up to Year 13 and parents/carers. In addition to this, Year 7s took part in the annual Heroes and Villains competition whereby the most successful groups from each class competed head-to-head in the finals to share their brandnew ideas for a Heroes and Villains-style story. Judged by the expert Dr Webb, Librarian, and Mr Wiggins, Deputy Head, pupils had great fun working together, scoring each other in the pupils’ choice section, and celebrating each other’s inventive book character costumes.
Year 8 had the pleasure of watching a bespoke recording of Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Final Problem’ by the talented writer, performer and director, Chris Connaughton, in preparation for the Year 8 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Writing Prize. Pupils have been invited by Chris to write the follow-on story ‘Sherlock Returns’ in the same style and supplied the pupils with a separate recording of advice and analysis to help them with their writing journeys.
On International Women’s Day, the book celebrations continued with the remarkable author Sita Brahmachari. Year 6s enjoyed the launch of their ‘Through the Arch’ project, which will continue with Sita in April. Sixth Form Book Group presented an exhibition of creative responses to Sita’s new novel When Shadows Fall, as reported in The News, and Lit Soc enjoyed an IWD-themed talk at lunchtime about the importance of the power female voice in society. If this wasn’t enough, Sita then visited Year 2s to read Swallow’s Kiss, sing and dance, and then to undertake a creative task whereby pupils created wishes, which they wrote on feathers to stick on a large wishing bird – this bird will then fly out to spread the wishes.
During WBD and IWD, we were reminded of the power of stories, the joy of dressing up, the importance of celebrating our girls and young women at PGS, and the power of community coming together (in person) at long last!
