This year's Scholastic Book Fair was a great success! After the pupils all visited the fair on Monday and Tuesday, we were delighted to see lots of children bringing mums and dads in to browse the books after school throughout the week. An excellent range of titles was on offer, together with a few posters and toys, capturing children's interest from Early Years up to Year 6. Mrs Wilding's talent for matching the book to the child proved invaluable and lots of pupils went home excited about their purchases with a renewed enthusiasm for reading.

Pupils in Reception, Years 1 and 2 enjoyed a visit from two Alton librarians on Thursday 24th April. They brought an exciting collection of books suitable for different ages and interests and also talked about many other items that children may borrow, including DVDs and Play station games.

The special events organised by the Library were also of great interest, and our visitors were very impressed with the show of hands demonstrating children who took part in the Summer Reading Challenge; apparently this year’s challenge will have an Olympic theme.

Shakespeare Day also saw the Upper Prep's celebration of our recent outstanding performance in the ESB exams. Whilst time didn't permit the audience of pupils and parents to hear performances from all children, two dozen pupils from Years 4-6 performed their exam pieces. The programme gave particular prominence to poetry recitation, following on from Helen Mort's visit that morning, with lovely performances of "The Mystery of my Sister's School Photo" from Flora, "Excuses, Excuses" from Zoe and "L Plates on my Football Shirt" from Josh, amongst many others. A few brave children performed their presentations, including a splendid illustrated talk on Polar Bears by Grace. ESB work does much to boost the children's self confidence, and their willingness to perform to a large audience is some testament to this. The Year 3s are already thinking ahead to their chance to take part next year!

As part of the school's Shakespeare Day celebrations, we were delighted to welcome five-time Foyle Young Poet Award winner Helen Mort to the school to run a couple of poetry workshops. Year 6 were joined by a number of pupils from neighbouring Bentley Primary School for a workshop which explored the ways that poetry, in contrast to Auden's view, can change the world. The children explored techniques for writing poetry of their own, such as thinking from the perspective of other senses or exploring the impossible. The workshop concluded with Helen reading some of her own poems, and answering pupils' questions on her life and work as a poet. The Year 5 workshop followed a similar format, although with this group Helen also had chance to hear some of the pupils perform their ESB poems. We've purchased a copy of Helen's collection of poems, The Shape of Every Box, for the prep school library.

This year forms in years seven, eight and nine performed role-plays in the theme of one of Shakespeare’s plays to celebrate St George’s day, the 444th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.
The forms either got into groups or did a whole form performance. This year we had to choose a subject themed on Shakespeare’s play ‘A Midsummer night’s dream’ and then create a story six months from when the play ended. The subjects were: The Lovers, The Mechanicals (Bottom, Flute, Quince) and The Fairies. We were given two weeks to practise our role-play, year eight a little less due to a school trip.

The weeks of hard work, learning poetry, rehearsing prose and planning and practising presentations have certainly paid off this year, with record numbers of pupils (33!) achieving distinctions in their English Speaking Board exams. Almost all of our candidates achieved a merit, with no less than 84% getting Merit Plus or higher; our best results so far. The results apart, the opportunity for independent, personalised study and research, the chance to learn from and critique one another’s work, and the development of analysis and presentation skills make this a hugely important part of our curriculum.

Local author Peter Ward visited Year 7, 8 and 9 pupils to present and discuss his latest novel "Dragon Horse" as a part of World Book Day celebrations. The girls were enchanted by his tale of ancient China with its range of weird and wonderful characters and vivid descriptions, brought to life by the author himself. Pupils had already read extracts from the novel and created a display of drawings of the old storyteller Shoo Lao which were much admired by Peter Ward. At the end of the talk, the girls were able to ask questions exploring his source of inspiration and the trials and delights of being a writer.

Earlier in the year, Year 3 pupils entered the Inner Wheel's competition to produce bookmarks in support of the RNIB’s talking books appeal, and thus it was that we found ourselves heading off to Alton’s excellent public library on Tuesday morning, to see an exhibition of all the entries and attend the prize presentation. Arriving a little early, we had chance to explore the children’s section of the library and it was lovely to see Year 3 settling down contentedly to read and share books. Alton’s Inner Wheel President, Mrs Pam Conway, said how impressed the judges had been by the standard of all the entries, and we were delighted that our own Maisie came 2nd overall, receiving Green Dragon vouchers as her prize.

We have the beginnings of a new book collection in the library – audio books! Some will be solely on CD, but others will be a combination of book and CD – ideal for less confident readers. And who knows? Listening to a great story might encourage a reluctant reader to seek out the actual book. There will be something for all ages in the first delivery, with more to follow. Please be assured though that the buying of conventional books will continue, as we’re constantly updating and enhancing our collection. If anyone has an audiobook that’s been outgrown, and if they’d like to donate it to the library, Mrs Wilding would be delighted, and so would her borrowers!

The school has signed up as an Amazon Associate - parents using the Amazon link on the front page of the school website will now earn a 5% referral fee for the school’s library budget, with Christmas shopping lists in mind, we do hope parents will make use of this very easy way to support the school.