World Book Day 2021

Thursday 4^th of March was World Book Day and students at GMS took part in discussions and reading-based activities throughout the day.

Last year, the English Department organised off-timetable activities for Year 7, the students took part in a range of reading-focused activities, which included comic strip designing, badge making and creative writing. We had fantastic feedback from students, parents and carers following the day and were enthused to do something similar this year.

In spite of the fact that students were learning from home on World Book Day, we wanted to build on the momentum begun last year to promote a reading culture across the school. In order to do this, we asked students and teachers in all year groups to take part in a ‘Drop Everything and Read’ activity. As a result, during Period 3 on World Book Day, all students and staff ‘Dropped’ the usual tasks in their lessons and took part in a range of different reading-based activities.

We have had some brilliant feedback from students and staff. Here is feedback from a few departments.

Mrs Singh’s Reading Ideas for Science Students

Students, across all years at GMS, who had a science lesson during Period 3 had the opportunity to read about some science-specific topics! Mrs Singh’s research led to a range of articles and reading tasks designed to inspire the future scientists of Marlow. Students spent the time reading a text from the range of topics, before answering comprehension questions. The students were offered further reading to challenge and inspire them even more.

Mr Warner’s Year 12 Geography Class

The Y12 A-level Geography students chose a short story on travel writing to read during the lesson. They spent the time reading and thinking about places reading can take you to. The extracts were from The Sahara Desert, Driving a Dog Sled in Alaska and Water Buffalo Racing in Thailand!

English KS4 Students

KS4 English students had a range of tasks to choose from. One of these was to read or listen to one of the Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. This was a great opportunity for GCSE students, who are currently studying The Sign of the Four, to extend their knowledge and understanding. Students were able to share their opinions of the different stories and discuss the similarities across the different Sherlock Holmes texts.

Watch this space!

Following the fantastic feedback from students and staff from this year’s World Book Day, the English Department is hoping to continue to build on and promote a reading culture across the school. We hope to bring you news in the coming months about some exciting opportunities that will inspire everyone to continue reading and perhaps begin some writing of their own!

Many thanks to Mr S. Taylor for sending in this article.