Bedales celebrates World Book Day
Pupils and staff at Bedales have marked World Book Day 2022 with not just a single day, but a packed week of activities celebrating a love of books and reading.
At Bedales Prep, Dunhurst, pupils took part in a range of fun challenges throughout the week, from designing badges and classroom doors inspired by books, to sharing extracts and recreating scenes from books in their tutor groups. Livestreamed World Book Day events also enabled pupils to hear from a number of inspiring authors, writers and illustrators, including children’s laureate Cressida Cowell, rapper MC Grammar, illustrators Chris Riddell and Allen Fatimaharan, and authors Hannah Lee and Michael Morpurgo.
At Bedales Pre-prep, Dunannie, children marked the occasion by taking part in a library competition, ‘Book in a Box’, creating a scene from a favourite book inside a box. Children created a wide variety of book scenes displayed in various size boxes and a winner from each class will receive a book voucher to spend. They also enjoyed ‘drop everything and read’ sessions throughout the week and were visited by staff from Dunhurst and Bedales – including Head of Dunhurst Colin Baty, Head of Blocks Mark Hales, Head of English Nichola Gotel and Head of Catering Matt Potts – who read their favourite children’s books to them.
On World Book Day itself – Thursday 3 March – pupils and staff across the three schools dressed up as literary characters and writers for the day. Those inspiring costumes at Bedales Senior included Daisy Buchanan from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; author Daphne du Maurier; poet Emily Dickinson; Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations; Lord Sebastian Flyte (complete with teddy bear Aloysius) from Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited; Count Dracula from Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde; and the BFG from Roald Dahl’s children’s book of the same name. Bedales Librarian Matilda McMorrow also organised a character hunt for students on the day, with prizes for the most characters guessed correctly, and a pin the book on the map game in the Library.
Now in its 25th year, World Book Day celebrates books and reading in over 100 countries across the globe. Its mission is to promote reading for pleasure – the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success.
Bedales Head of English David Anson said: “Perhaps now more than ever it is important to celebrate the massive privilege it is to be able to read freely in this country. I hope that we celebrate the importance of reading at many points in the year here at Bedales but World Book Day is a great opportunity for us to celebrate not only a richness of literary history but also to celebrate the liberty and freedom that reading can enable in a better appreciation and understanding of the world around us.”
Dunhurst’s Head of English Nichola Gotel added: “In our World Book Day assembly, we celebrated voices across our community. As well as recorded sound bites from teachers and support staff, we heard the voices of the pupils – excellent readers from every year group – and extracts from famous diaries from around the world. We have such a vibrant voice, and everyone has a story to share.”
World Book Day | English at Bedales | English at Dunhurst | English at Dunannie