In our Junior Section students have loved celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 8th March. Students were given the prompt of dressing up as a non-fictional person from a book, and we have had some wonderful and creative outfits. From athletes to artists, dancers and doctors, suffragettes, the earth, and a bee! It was lovely to see our students’ creativity shine, and also to hear them discussing their non-fictional person (or thing) and the book they had read to learn about them. 

On Thursday morning we had a ‘Quotes quiz’ where students read famous quotes from popular books for their age groups, and students had to guess the title and author. Additionally for our older year groups, students attempted to guess the year the book was published. Examples of quotes were ‘First of all let me get something straight: this is a journal not a diary’ from Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and ‘Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t you think?’ by L. Frank Baum in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Later, we had an assembly in St. John’s Hall to celebrate our students’ creative outfits, with two students from each class receiving certificates and house stars.

We have also enjoyed our ‘Big Book Swap’, where girls have brought in a book they no longer read to swap with another one from their class. A great way to recycle unwanted books and read something new!

Recently students have been reading a selection of books from the series ‘Little People, Big Dreams’. In response to this, some classes made booklets about themselves, inspired by the book covers – illustrating themselves and their big dreams. 

In our Senior section, our Year 7 students have been excitingly participating in a ‘Blind book date swap’. Students brought in a pre-loved book that they were happy to pass on to another student. The books were wrapped up in brown paper to conceal their identity and on the brown paper students wrote 5 keywords to describe the book – without naming the characters in the book or adding the title. Students then swapped their book for a ‘new’ book, which they selected by reading the 5 key words.

To further encourage a love of reading and a positive reading culture in school, our librarian Ms Harries has organised for another group of Wakefield Girls’ students to compete in the National Reading Champions Quiz, run by the National Literacy Trust. Four Year 8 students: Ayaat, Kate, Lydia and Phoebe will be competing in the Yorkshire and Humber Heat against other local schools on Friday 8th March.

The quiz allows keen readers, aged between 10-14 years, to become part of a team, represent their school in a national competition and have a chance to shine. The event helps to build a reading community and reading culture within school and brings excitement and drama to the wonderful world of reading. 

It is no easy-feat: the quiz references over 250 books. No reading list is provided – to prepare students should continue to read diversely, as they already do. We know our students will thrive in the quiz, and hopefully they will get through to the next round! The grand final will take place in June and is scheduled to be a live event. 

Mrs J Butterfield and Mr J Shaw

Junior’s English Lead and Senior’s Head of English