Posted on: March 12th 2021
On Thursday 4th March, thanks to tremendous levels of enthusiasm from the teachers, parents and children (and a little help from the gods of the internet), we celebrated a slightly unusual but hugely enjoyable World Book Day. In classrooms, kitchens and living rooms all over north London, there were a multitude of fabulous heroes in all their various guises. And although our fancy dress parades may not have been in the playground this year, the children (and the staff) were able to display and explain their fabulous costumes in Google Meets with their friends and we took some great pictures that capture the excitement and thought that had been invested by our school community.
Congratulations go to Emilia and Tom in Nursery, Minahil and Ora in Reception, Erin and Ava in Form 1, Selina and Leo in Form 2 and Amber and Eve in Form 3 for an amazing range of costumes including Thor, a panda and an astronaut! Well done too to Jye and Lapo in Form 4 who came as Supertato and Boris Johnson, Ava from Form 5 who came as Wish from ‘The Wizards of Once’ and Alfred, who dressed as his big brother in his air force cadet uniform. Finally, Oscar C and Annabel in Form 6 came as a WW2 pilot and Darrell from the Malory Towers series and all winners should have now received their book token prizes so they can each choose an exciting new book to explore. A special thank you also goes to our Form 6 heads of library, Sol and Lauren who helped to judge the F6 costume winners and alongside Dillan, they spoke avidly about their love of reading in a special Bellevue WBD podcast.
But that wasn’t all as the fun carried on throughout the week! From our youngest pupils, all the way up to our Form 6s, there were free online Scholastic workshops from incredible illustrators and authors like Tom Knight and Vashti Hardy and the teachers planned wonderful book related activities across several days to engage the children both in school and at home. It was also lovely to have some parents volunteer to read to the class and do please get in touch if you would like to offer in the future. Forms 2-6 were also treated to some brilliant hero themed drama workshops and the children had a huge amount of fun with our new friend and actor, Charlie Hotson. He played games and got everyone moving, both at home and in school and he was incredibly encouraging as the children spoke as imaginary superheroes and explained their special qualities, both human and extraordinary! Hopefully, now the children are back in school, we can also organise some more workshops for the younger children to get them up and active whilst celebrating great books and characters.
Forms 4, 5 and 6 were lucky enough to have a virtual author session on Friday 5th March and Hannah Gold was hugely engaging when telling us about her new book, ‘The Last Bear.’ She was very impressed with the wonderful questions the children asked and as a bonus, we sold lots of copies of her book whilst also supporting The Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill. It is always a real privilege to hear an author talk about their own work and read the words they have so carefully crafted and Hannah really inspired all of us in the session. Senior Prep also had some hilarious and informative virtual sessions with the author, Andy Seed this week and he delighted them with non-fiction tales of animal poo, awful animals and lots of interactive word games and riddles. Thank you to Mrs Charman for finding such an entertaining speaker and I can’t wait to hear about the sessions she has organised for F1-3 with the Knitbone Pepper author, Claire Barker.
So despite facing some limitations this year, over the past few weeks Norfolk House has successfully celebrated all things literary and we have more in the pipeline for the coming weeks and months. An enormous thank you to everyone for their efforts and support in fostering a love of reading and keep an eye on the weekly bulletins for details of upcoming workshops and events.
Happy reading everyone and well done once again!
Mrs Osborne
Take a look at all the great photos here.
