9th March 2020 — One of the highlights is the shared reading – girls spend time with those in other year groups, sharing their favourite books and reading to one another. Reading aloud and exploring stories with others is a great way to improve children’s reading and comprehension, and we love how this can help form bonds between girls across the year groups.

Throughout the school there were book-themed activities taking place in classrooms, including in the Year 3 classrooms where the girls enjoyed creating their own alternative fairy tale by exploring story structure, learning how to introduce and develop characters and story-line, and how to bring a story to a close. The girls not only starred in their own fairy tale reenactment, but also created film posters and brought in props. Also, in Pre-Prep French the girls learnt the story of Boucles d’Or – Goldilocks – learning that while Papa Ours, Maman Ours and Bébé Ours went for a walk in the forest, Boucles d’Or tried porridge from le grand bol, le bol moyen et le petit bol. And in Drama, each year group was given a Revolting Rhyme by Roald Dahl to perform ‘in the round’. The girls worked really hard to express the different characters and made sure they incorporated movement and actions. Meanwhile in the library, girls have taken part in a ‘Where’s Wally’ hunt, a ‘guess the number of books in the library’ competition, a fairy tale treasure hunt and more.

Thanks goes to our wonderful parents’ association, the Friends of Maltman’s Green for organising the pre-loved book sale of second hand books donated from our school community. The girls have really enjoyed exploring new stories and getting their hands on some fantastic books for just £1 or £2.

Finally, Thursday came round and the girls came to school dressed as a character from their favourite book (the fairy tale theme was optional). The costumes were amazing and it was wonderful to see the effort that the girls (and parents!) had gone to, with some fabulous homemade costumes on display. But let’s not forget the teachers, many of whom worked as a team to form all characters from Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Snow White and Cinderella.

It was a hugely fun week which we hope has got the girls more excited about reading, more adventurous with their choice of books and more confident reading aloud.