World Book Day

We kept World Book Day creative and fresh whilst still fostering a great love of reading and books by integrating broadcasting, now firmly embedded in the curriculum here at Upton. We decided to produce engaging footage that would be great fun for the children and make the school stand out from the more typical still pictures of children in costumes. We still did a few of those but we wanted to inspire children to be creative with books and text using broadcasting. Our focus was demonstrating the breadth of approach to enjoying World Book Day, and celebrating books using video footage. Technology is a useful tool for invigorating that love of reading amongst this tech-savvy generation. On the day itself, we recorded Form 2 book reviews. The children delivered a live-broadcast, passionate and engaging synopsis of their favourite classics.

We also had great fun with Unnatural Pairings. In Forms 5 and 6 for example, Mary Poppins met Horrible Henry; Mary Queens of Scots met the Cat in the Hat. Further down the school The Hungry Caterpillar met Mr Bump! Shakespeare’s characters met those from the present day! The improvised chats between the characters from different genres and times were fascinating, invigorating, and fun and brought a whole different and innovative energy to World Book Day 2023. Being able to watch and review their conversations afterwards was incredibly useful and the children loved it.

We then moved to assembling unselected characters to complete a story and perform a skit. None of these costumes were pre-agreed. It was quirky, and hilarious and displayed a love of the classics throughout the whole school with video shorts including The Wizard Oz and Cruella which were published on our social media channels to rave reviews.

How could we then not take the opportunity to create The Evolution of Cat in the Hat – a play on the Evolution of Humans Assembling representative Cat in the Hats across the year groups, which included Forms 1, 3, 5, 6 and a member of staff; the results were poignant and powerful. As a final touch, we also recorded all of the children in their costumes from Early Years to Form 6 – that’s a lot of costumes! Each child did a little moment on the stage, proudly modelling their book character – even the youngest Uptonian, whether it was homemade that morning or a classic purchased attire.