Pupils' excitement as World Book Day comes early

Many of the children came to school dressed as their favourite characters from books.

From James Bond and Hetty Feather to Gangsta Granny and Fantastic Mr Fox, all the children were excited to have the day off-timetable and to be given the time to write, speak, listen and grow.

This year, we were delighted welcome two guest speakers to school. Ian Billings, a children’s poet, showed us that anyone can write and enjoy poetry.

His inspirational presentation stretched the children’s imagination and motivated them to put pen to paper. The spelling expert Andy Salmon, aka Sir Linkalot, impressed the children with his infectious energy and enthusiasm for spelling.

He kept them all fully entertained with an interactive performance and they all went away able to spell some very tricky words.

Another highlight of the day was the whole school poem that all the children wrote together. Based on the famous poem ‘The Magic Box’, by Kit Wright, the children found interesting and imaginative ways to describe the most important influences in their own lives, some of which were recorded for a school poetry video.

Our librarian, Mrs Fenton’s Annual Book Quiz was another high point of the day, when children were challenged to remember facts and details about books that they’ve read.

Annabel, Year 5, said that she ‘really enjoyed the poet coming in. He was really funny, he gave us loads of ideas so that we can write our own poems. Rafe, also Year 5, added: “It was great that we had professional writers and experts coming in to the school so that we could learn from them and be inspired to write.”