World Book Day 2022

World Book Day was celebrated with great success and enthusiasm by the children this year. All week, at lunchtimes, the children had been watching the musical 'Oliver!' as an introduction to one of Charles Dickens' most famous stories. On the morning of World Book Day, they watched some animated short films that explained more about the life of this famous author. They learned about his own difficult childhood, when his father was sent to a debtor's prison and Charles had to go out to  work in a factory at the age of twelve, and how this influenced the rest of his life.  They learned how he was determined to make his stories available to everyone, publishing serialised stories in the newspaper and organising public readings of his work, so that they could be heard by those unable to read. They discussed how Charles Dickens' books, which highlighted how difficult life was for some people in Victorian times, had an influence in prompting people to campaign for change, giving the children an understanding of the potential power in story-telling!

The Class 1 children used their historical understanding to make a timeline of some of the main events in this famous author's life, writing captions for each event. They also dressed up using a Victorian Dressing UP box that the teachers had put together - and acted out scenes from Oliver.

Meanwhile, the children of Class 2 completed a 'Charles Dickens scavenger hunt', finding out facts about the author, before writing a fact file or short biography. After meeting together again to share and celebrate what they had found out, the children worked in their knot teams for the rest of the day. Each group explored a children's version of a different one of Dickens' famous stories. They then made shadow puppets of the main characters, linking with Class 2's recent Science work on light and shadows. The children worked in multi-age teams to create a retelling of the story they had explored. This helped to develop their teamwork, collaboration and oracy skills - and was a lot of fun! The day ended with a celebration in which the children presented their puppet plays to one another. It was a really memorable and enjoyable day. In the words of one of the pupils, "I liked doing the shadow puppets because it looked really cool and when we were performing, we had a lot of fun!"