Pupils and staff at the College joined people from all around the world on Thursday in celebrating UNESCO’s 22nd annual World Book Day, which is designed to promote the pleasure of reading among young people.
The College put together a series of activities and special events throughout the week. These included:
Drop Everything and Read which provided pupils and staff with the opportunity to stop lessons and read a book of their choice for a 25-minute slot during the day. This was an opportunity to underline the importance of reading and to encourage students to take pleasure in books.
Share a Story saw members of teaching staff sharing extracts from their favourite books around the school.
Reading is Power: a display in the Library demonstrating how reading opens doors to other worlds and changes lives.
Match a Teacher to a Shelfie competition: Dante alongside Dan Brown? The London A-Z on top of the Rough Guide to Cuba? Who might this collection of books belong to? Pupils had to assign a teacher to a photograph of a bookshelf.
Poet Francesca Beard visited the College to speak to pupils and judge the M4 Poetry competition.
Author Andrew Lane visited the College to talk about his popular series Young Sherlock and Agent without Licence. Andrew gave a fascinating talk on his inspiration for the series, including how the character of Sherlock Holmes has grown in popularity over the last decade, appearing in many areas of popular culture. The Third Form were also excited to hear about his latest series of spy novels: Agent Without Licence and they are eagerly awaiting the next installment which Andrew has just finished.
Author Fiona Campbell spoke about her career as a writer and about her latest novel, The Islanders, set in a remote boarding school.
Make a miniature book character: pupils explored their creative side and captured the essence of their favourite book characters in this craft activity.
Lower School Book Day competition: A competition to find the best costume, make the best pitch for a book and do the best reading aloud.
World Book Day £1 vouchers were distributed to students to encourage them to buy and read books.
