Exeter schools celebrate World Book Day
Exeter students have been celebrating World Book Day this week (7th March.)
World Book Day was created by UNESCO in 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, it is marked in over 100 countries. The World Book Day charity’s Strategy 2023-27 sets out that its aim is “more children, from all backgrounds, developing a life-long habit of reading for pleasure, benefiting from the improved life chances this brings them.”
The day went off with a bang in Ted Wragg Trust schools across Exeter, at St Lukes there was a book swap and cake sale in the library with money raised being donated to The Children’s Literacy Charity. The school also held a ‘big read’ challenge, where the whole school read a short story over the course of the day, as well as a ‘Guess the teacher’ tutor quiz with chocolate prizes for the winning tutor group.
Over at the Whipton Barton Federation they celebrated with the theme, ‘Books we love to share’ and gave out prizes for the most creative costumes. They also held a competition to design a new bookmark for the federation, including the school colours and logo.
Isca Academy put on a book sale and staff delivered lessons wearing costumes from their favourite books.
Queen Elizabeth’s School held a range of quizzes and activities, including identifying a shredded book in a jar from visible text. They also held a ReadingZone Live's author event, Writing Thrillers and Horror with SJ Wills and had author Sarah Crossan into the school to talk about her book Where the Heart Should Be.
Exwick Heights also welcomed an author in to talk to pupils, Anne Parsons-Bryce author of the popular ‘Archie’ series came in on World Book Day itself and stayed after school to sign copies of her latest book.
Staff from schools across the Ted Wragg Trust have also been taking part in an Extreme Reading Competition where they have to submit pictures of themselves reading somewhere unusual. The winning entries will be rewarded with sets of new books for their schools.
The World Book Day charity promotes reading by celebrating the joy of books, authors, illustrators and reading for pleasure, along with transforming attitudes and changing behaviours by providing content to promote reading for fun. They also ensure that every child gets to choose a book of their own with the World Book Day £1 books and tokens.
The National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy Survey, recorded the lowest level of reading enjoyment since the trust began its survey in 2005. They found that just 2 in 5 (43.4%) children and young people aged 8 to 18 said they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2023, the lowest level since they first asked the question in 2005. The survey also concluded that fewer than 3 in 10 (28.0%) children and young people aged 8 to 18 said that they read daily in 2023.
Moira Marder, CEO of the Ted Wragg Trust said: “Reading confidently is the foundation of education and reading for enjoyment is even better! As such, I am so glad that our schools have made such efforts to mark World Book Day this week. I do hope our students will all be going home with something new to read.”
