Girls from Year 7 to Year 13 joined in the fun with themed costumes including an agricultural invasion straight off the pages of John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and a tribute to Jane Austen in the form of Mr Darcy and two Elizabeth Bennetts.
Year 7 provided enough Matildas to stage our own musical while Shakespeare was also well represented with several classrooms were bursting at the seams with fairies courtesy of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. A special mention must go to Year 8 Lottie who spent the day dressed as a wall and to Mr Crump, AKA Sherlock Holmes, and Mrs House, as Juliet, who moved from room to room searching for her Romeo.
World Book Day is always close to our hearts and offers our young bookworms another chance to show off their love of reading. Special activities included a dressing up competition and a literary quiz while buddy reading between Prep 6 and Year 10 gave our older girls the chance to revisit some of their childhood favourite books.
The day comes as a major survey of 27,000 children and young people, carried out by the National Literacy Trust, found that the number of eight to 18-year-olds reading for pleasure has now dropped to 52.5%, from 58.8% in 2016, with only a quarter (25.7%) reading daily, compared with 43% in 2015. The majority of boys and over half of girls in every age group said they preferred screen time to reading.
Aware of the value reading adds to every student’s academic, emotional and social development, students throughout the school are encouraged to challenge themselves with the books they read and share their experiences together. Girls of all ages are always found in the library curled up with good book whilst younger pupils regularly take part in buddy reading sessions to help improve their literacy skills and build their confidence together.
Experts say reading aloud to children, free from accompanying work or exercises, is key to fostering reading for pleasure. A 2018 National Literacy Trust study found that children who enjoyed reading were significantly less likely to have mental health problems, while the Centre for Longitudinal Studies found in 2013 that reading for pleasure has a four times greater impact on academic success than one parent having a degree.
