Harrodians enjoyed dressing up as their favourite book characters and listening to lots of stories - the theme to this year's World Book Day.
From Ratty to the Secret Detectives, from Hedwig to Juliet Capulet, the Midnight Gang to Gandalf, Harrodian was teeming with literary figures and spaces around the school were filled with staff or pupils reading to one another.
French writer Daniel Pennac said that 'when someone reads aloud...they give you the gift of reading.' It is his quote that inspired a 'listening to stories/reading aloud' theme to this year's WBD. Staff embraced the theme and were only too glad to share their love of books by ending each of their lessons with a story either read by themselves, by one of our librarians or by playing a video of an author reading a favourite story.
When someone reads aloud...they give you the gift of reading.
The inspiration for this year's 'listening to stories' theme.
Sixth Formers found spaces (wherever they could!) in the Main Hall and Reception to read to younger pupils. Meanwhile Mr Hooke enjoyed selecting some of his favourite picture books in the Junior Library and reading them to the Pre-Prep children in their classrooms and librarian Brenda Powell read one of her favourite Fairy Tale stories, The Magician's Horse, to an auditorium full of captivated PP2 and PP3 children, below.
English teacher Ms Vanessa Sewell came up with the idea of creating a short film with video clips of teachers and 11s (Year 7) pupils talking about their favourite books. Her goal was to show the children how teachers from all departments across the school enjoy reading books and that reading isn't an activity confined only to English lessons or English teachers, nor is it something that has to stop after childhood. Some of the interviewees were asked about their first memory of a book, if they still have a book from their childhood that they return to, why they enjoy listening to books being read, or which book they would love to read again. To watch this video, which was shown in Prep assembly earlier on in the week please see below:
Special literary-themed celebrations continued all day, including a special World Book Day quiz, class activities such as taster sessions on book illustrating and character empathy tasks, and not forgetting the return of the 'Lyrical Clinic' laid on by Mr McDowall of the English Department, below, clad in white medical attire in the Senior Foyer. This service offered one-to-one consultations with visiting students who were then 'prescribed' poems 'for the alleviation' of a list of common complaints including 'Isolation, Hope, Inertia, Regret and Whatever life throws at you'.
As usual World Book Day also gave Harrodian teachers an excuse to dress up and pose as their favourite books or characters in them, and they rose exuberantly to the challenge. Learning Enrichment dressed up as characters from Winnie the Pooh, the English team as Animal Farm, the Lower Prep teachers as Alice in Wonderland, our Science department came dressed as 101 Dalmatians, Art teachers were inspired by Tin Tin, while our geographers posed as a world atlas.
World Book Day at Harrodian is not complete without a community focus. This year all students were asked to bring in books from home that they had already read and to give them to a Library collection in aid of the Children's Book Project - a charity that distributes books to disadvantaged children across London. Approximately 60 boxes and bags full of books were donated and an estimated total of over 1,200 books collected.
