World Book Day, 7th March 2024

In celebration of World Book Day this year, Primary pupils have chosen to dress as their favourite book character. Pupils from Nursery to Year 6 will spend the day engaging in a wide range of activities linked to their favourite stories. Our younger pupils will enjoy an extended, cosy story time within their classrooms and will also participate in inspiring and creative craft sessions. 

Throughout the school community, pupils will also enjoy a World Book Day House Quiz. Lower School pupils will be taking part in a Story Book House Quiz, facilitated by Cedar staff and supported by older Cedar pupils. Additionally, classes from Years 5 to 11 will compete in House Quizzes during their English lessons, focusing on literature, poetry and plays they have studied throughout the year. Winning teams in each phase will gain points for their House.

In keeping with this competitive spirit, we are running further House Competitions to commemorate World Book Day this year. There is a ‘decorate an egg’ competition, with pupils making an egg into their favourite character from a book, and a repeat of last year’s Extreme Reading competition, which will launch on World Book Day itself and run over the Easter holidays.

We will also be running a sponsored read event. 

At Heathfield Knoll School, the celebration of stories extends beyond World Book Day and is woven into our engaging and creative curriculum. From the earliest ages, we nurture a love of reading, seamlessly integrating stories into diverse settings such as the forest, the library, and celebration assemblies. 

Our Primary and Secondary libraries are extensively stocked and are regularly updated with new titles, often at the request of our pupils. Lower School pupils can borrow books with the help of their Class Teacher, while older pupils have the freedom to browse and select books at their leisure. Many pupils enjoy reading our library books during our whole-school Wednesday morning ‘DEAR’ (Drop Everything And Read) time. 

We also hold regular virtual author events for our Middle School pupils. Most recently, Years 5 and 6 thoroughly enjoyed a Zoom call with the children’s author S. F. Said – which turned many pupils into avid fans of his Varjak Paw series.

We also aim to build and maintain communication about reading with parents, distributing literature about our reading curriculum and hosting annual conferences to share our approach to Primary reading instruction. At Heathfield Knoll School, we firmly believe that this partnership with parents plays a crucial role in children’s learning journeys and in instilling a lifelong love of reading.