Mrs Georgia Leyden – Prep Librarian
Our much-anticipated World Book Day Celebrations were thoroughly enjoyed in the Prep; everybody fully embraced the theme of ‘Our Reading Journey’ to create a whole school community series of book-related events for everybody to enjoy.
Our Prep 6 Librarians, Gabby A and Jimena, worked so hard to support me and the children in all our events. We began by creating a huge Reading Hive display, which illustrated individual hexagons from all pupils, featuring those books that have been instrumental in our reading journeys. The discussions around these have been heartwarming, reminding us all of the impact reading has on us as learners and as empathic humans. The completed display is a lasting reminder of our school as a reading community and of how social and collaborative our enjoyment of books is.
World Book Day itself was a “snuggle with books” day. Children and teachers wore pyjamas to enable us to comfortably relax and read for pleasure together; Prep classes were matched together so that they could share their favourites with each other. Students took part in online author events, book quizzes and many more activities during the day, with the highlight being a ‘Book Cover Treasure Hunt’. The sun shone, which enabled us to hunt far and wide through the Prep, College, all playgrounds and the Outdoor Classroom and grounds – it was glorious to be in the spring sunshine with friends to complete the challenge and take more opportunities for ‘book talk’!
I was thrilled to be invited to take two teams into the College World Book Day Quiz, which was great fun, and the teams performed so well, coming a very respectable joint third. All children were awarded the famous World Book Day voucher, and we have all been sharing how we chose to spend them. Some children saved them to spend on their visit to our Scholastic Book Fair with their families. It was a great success and was so generously supported. Thanks to our Prep families, we have earned over £250 in rewards to spend on books and resources for our classrooms. The children have been very busy creating book wish lists, which has created a great buzz!
To complete our March book celebrations, we received great news from our digital library provider, SORA, that we have borrowed over 3000 books this academic year online. The children and their families have truly embraced SORA alongside our Prep Library to access quality texts, and our usage is having a genuine impact on our children’s enjoyment and engagement with reading for pleasure. I was so delighted to award our SORA Squad with special badges in recognition of their hard work and enthusiasm in making our digital library so successful.
We continue to celebrate books every day in the Prep, recognising that our reading journey is lifelong and full of joy!
