Dance show and World Book Week

The spring dance show has now become a staple of the extra curricular year at MHS, under the leadership of Miss Griffies from the PE department. As I write this the second of two performances is under way, with students showing off their talents and great energy in Bradshaw Hall. It’s always a fantastic evening, well supported by families and friends, and I hope to see the event grow even more in future years.

Also this week has been World Book Day, although we prefer to call it World Book Week. Regular readers of this blog will know that I often discuss the topic of reading, and how reading fiction books is one of the very best things a student can do to succeed in school. Turn up and read, turn up and read…you know the message.

Therefore it would be odd if we didn’t get involved in World Book Day, one of the most well known celebrations of all things literature. The only issue is we don’t actually like what WBD has become in some schools. I get that dressing up in fancy dress to represent famous characters from books can be fun, and I imagine it’s great for primary school kids (less so their parents!), but I think that at secondary school we can go a little deeper and focus on the reading over the fancy dress.

So, instead, we have World Book Week at MHS. We have competitions for students and staff running across the week that inspire everyone to engage with books and with reading, a fantastic assembly from our literacy lead Katie Shakeshaft on the gift of reading, and most importantly we have reading embedded across every subject in every year group. At the start of one lesson in every subject this week, the teacher will have showcased a fiction book relevant to that subject. Historical fiction for me of course, tales of sporting endeavour in PE etc. The class will have explored the front cover of the book, looked at a summary of the plot and read together the first few pages. The idea is to give students 10 or so great reading recommendations that they can go off and read for themselves. If you have children at the school then maybe ask if they are interested in reading one of the stories shown to them? In any case, hopefully our approach is less traumatic than seeing their headteacher dressed as a low-budget Harry Potter!

Have a great weekend,

Joe Barker

Share!