Sacred Heart’s Festival of Reading!
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Monday 22nd June to Friday 26th June marked our annual Festival of Reading celebrations at Sacred Heart! This was a great way for the school to come together as a community to celebrate our brilliant reading culture with a variety of activities, events and competitions.
In anticipation of the festival, our Year 7 and 8 students experienced an author visit with the brilliant Amelia Tate, author of Lily Tripp: Diary of an Accidental Time Traveler. We found out about Amelia’s own diary writing adventures as a teenager, and her experiences as both a journalist and author. Many of our girls received copies of the book and report that it is a fantastic read!
The week-long Scholastic Book Fair offered even more opportunities for students to purchase some young adult and teen fiction – along with some much-loved novelty stationery. Attendance at the Book Fair was our best-ever, with students and staff making the most of the opportunity to explore new books.
For dancing fans, Mrs Perry held a literary dance class, where girls were taught the classic Roger de Coverley dance as seen in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Stig of the Dump, Sons and Lovers, amongst others.... the girls had never danced like this before but threw themselves into it and asked if they could teach it to the rest of their classmates!
Our SparxReader Queens enjoyed a ‘booknic’ in the library during break – a great celebration for those who gained the highest points in their reading homework throughout the year – well done to all those who were invited.
A great boredom buster was the ‘50-word Story Workshop’ which took place in the library during breaktime. Girls produced some fascinating ‘flash fiction’ with amazing twists and turns!
Our annual Poetry Slam in the library was another huge success! This was an opportunity for girls to share their own poems, or favourite poems, with other budding writers. Some of our teachers got involved too! Many thanks to Mrs Bennett and Mr Arnold for their contributions.
On Friday, our Year 10 RSC Ambassadors worked closely with groups of Year 7 students to rehearse for a ‘Shakespeare’ competition – to rehearse and perform a key scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We also held a sponsored read for Year 7 raising money for St Cuthbert’s Care.
The Festival ended with a twist on another Sacred Heart tradition: Drop Everything and Listen. All students across the school dropped everything in the last lesson on Friday afternoon to listen to a personalised video performance by famous poet, Hollie McNish which inspired really thoughtful conversations amongst students. A thought-provoking but relaxed ending to a wonderful week of reading! Thank you so much to everyone involved in organising and running such a fantastic event, especially Mrs Floyd and Ms Bossons.
