World Book Day is always a special event in the school calendar where we get to share everything we love about books and reading. This year it takes place on Thursday 7th March.

Free Book Tokens and books

Every child in the UK and Ireland will receive a free £1 World Book Token (to be sent home in reading folders in the week beginning 5^th February). These can be redeemed at all participating bookshops from Friday 15^th February – Sunday 31^st March 2024 (Minimum redemption £2.99, one transaction per Book Token). We will also be able to accept them towards the cost of a book at the forthcoming Travelling Book Fair at school. The token can also be directly exchanged for any one of a variety of special £1 titles. Please see the full list here: www.worldbookday.com/books-and-tokens/books/

Travelling Book Fair

The fair will be taking up residence in the school library between Thursday 14th and Wednesday 20th March. It will be available for browsing and buying between 3.15pm and 4.15pm on each of these days. We earn free books for our school when you buy your children's books through the fair. Please see further details and payment arrangements in our letter to parents here. Payments can be made through the book fair website also using this link: bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/pay/1276735. You can see the flyer here for a reminder of some of the titles that will be on offer 

Poetry competition for WBD

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, we have launched a poetry competition for all our budding creative writers. We would like the children to write a short poem (one side of A4 maximum) on a theme of their choice. It would be lovely to see some poems on the theme of books and reading, but this is not essential. The top entries will be featured in our school newsletter and will win some fun, writing-themed prizes.

Please give entries to class teachers to pass on to Mr Styles. The deadline for entries is Friday 1st March.

In order to provide some extra inspiration, please follow the links to the activity sheets below. Our youngest children may want to simply decorate a poem or rhyme that they enjoy.

What is poetry?, Rhymes and limericks, Haiku activity sheet.

Dressing up day

We are excited to announce that this year we will be celebrating by having a dressing up day on Thursday 7^th March. Get ready to show off your love of reading by coming in dressed as your favourite character. This can be as simple or as extravagant as you wish and the adults will be joining in too!

If you would like some ideas about what to dress up as, please visit www.worldbookday.com/resource/dressing-up-ideas-for-parents/

Celebratory school dinner

There will be a special school dinner menu on Thursday 7^th March to celebrate World Book Day. Please see the menu here and book your child’s school lunch in the usual fashion.

Author visit

We are thrilled to have an award-winning author visiting our school as part of our World Book Day celebrations. On Tuesday 19^th March, we will welcome author PG Bell who will be talking about his book series 'The Train to Impossible Places'.

There will be a special assembly about being an author, as well as a workshop with some of the children. There will also be a book signing at school, and all parents have been sent details of how to order a book. For your book to arrive in time for the book signing, orders must be emailed through by Friday 8^th March, although books can also be ordered after that date. Ordering these books in this way will mean that the school will also benefit from some free books for our library.

Please read this letter for a reminder of the information that parents have been sent regarding PG Bell and the process for and benefits of ordering his books.

We will be holding our traditional pancake races on the last day of term, Friday 9th February. Children should bring in a pan and a pancake (in a named carrier bag) and we will hold pancake events on the playground for FS/KS1 and KS2 pupils.

These races celebrate Shrove Tuesday which falls during the school holidays this year, on Tuesday 13th February.

There will also be a special pancake dessert on the school lunches menu available on Friday 9th. Please order following the usual process for school lunches.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent begins. Lent is the period of six weeks 40 days (not including Sundays) leading up to Easter, the most important festival in the Christian calendar. Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day because this day was traditionally the last chance to use up the foods Christians would not be eating during Lent.