On Thursday the 7th of March, the Thomas Hardye School celebrated the reigning tradition of World Book Day 2024. For 7 whole years the school’s staff has indulged in dressing up as famous characters from a variety of fantastic books they’ve read. As a school, they were keen to display the importance of reading, especially to their own students. This year, on World Book Day itself, the dress code among the 40 staff was ‘Where’s Wally’ and students participated in a treasure hunt where entrees from every year group went round and found all of the staff.

Every year, Thomas Hardye Library runs a competition on World Book Day. This year’s theme was to create a BookTok video, and previous competitions involved the school collectively making displays linked to reading.  The competition runs until the end of the spring term, and involves creating a 60 second video about a book or a book genre, with the overall winner being awarded £30 of Amazon vouchers. An amazing opportunity for students to get involved in extra curricular activities, what more is there to love?

Mrs Stevens, a librarian at the Thomas Hardye School explained, “Even at a school like this, where it’s perceived to be for older students, World Book Day is celebrated.  We understand the importance of reading, continuing that journey from childhood through the school to adulthood.”  The school participates in a range of activities surrounding World Book Day in order to get as many students taking part as possible, and they are keen to promote reading and the life skills it gives. The school is keen to continue to promote the tradition of World Book Day from primary school through to the upper school as well. So why not encourage your children to take part in a rare opportunity to celebrate books?