Infants and Juniors raised £91 during last term’s non-uniform day to celebrate World Book Day.
With their portion of the money raised, Infants purchased books that help reflect the broader society in which we live. They are kept on the classroom bookshelves for the children to enjoy and for teachers and children to share together.
Our pupils have been putting their best foot forward and demonstrating great team spirit in these recent fixtures with other schools.
Year 5 and 6 Girls Netball
Last Friday the Year 5 and 6 girls were delighted to play their first netball match against St Mary’s. We piled into the minibus and headed to the fantastic St Mary’s facilities on Long Road, the girls all incredibly excited and singing some lively tunes. The Year 6 team played one full 7-a-side match while Year 5 and 6 combined to play two 5-a-side games. It was a lovely experience for all of the girls and the Year 6’s even managed to draw their second match. The highlight of the day was definitely the post-match snacks provided by our hosts.
-Mrs Eastwood
Year 7 and 8 Girls Netball
Last week, Year 7 and 8 girls played netball against St Mary’s in a mini triangular fixture. Both Heritage teams played three short matches against the three St Mary’s teams. The Year 7’s lost to the A and B teams but won their third game against the C team. Heritage Year 8’s did exceptionally well and won all three of their games against the St Mary’s teams, even after rotating players into different positions to balance the competition. I was very impressed with each team member’s hard work and the lovely team spirit demonstrated during the fixture.
Seniors Basketball
In a recent basketball fixture against The Stephen Perse Foundation, a mixed team of boys and girls in the Senior School played well, worked hard for each other and displayed great teamwork. William and Tobi, two of our Year 11 Leavers from 2021, also joined us and were outstanding in warming the team up, working out plays and generally encouraging everyone throughout the match. The two teams were close all the way through the four quarters. Heritage went up by one point with less than a minute to go. The team ran the clock down, but the SPF team managed to get the ball back, run the length of the court and score on the buzzer to win the game 27/26. Although our pupils were disappointed, they felt they put everything out on the court and really enjoyed it. We are hoping to play SPF again in the summer.
-Mr Hulett
In the Senior School, World Book Day started with a presentation by the Literary Society, a group of Seniors who meet weekly with Mrs Fletcher to talk about authors, books and different genres of writing. During the assembly, each of the society members gave a short presentation about what they had been discussing this term. Toni (Y9) began by summarising a presentation she had prepared about Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451—one of the Essential Read books for Seniors and so a relevant discussion for all. Betsy (Y9) gave an overview of her talk on Myths and Legends and the role they play in society and culture. Isabella (Y9) then outlined her talk on the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
The presentations finished with a look at a recent discussion where Betsy (Y9) posed the idea that Austen, was never married but whose books are mostly about love and marriage, is often used as a counter example to the advice ‘write what you know’. Instead of writing what she knew from her own experiences (which were limited in general), she wrote about her observations of others. The conclusion of the discussion was that, rather than writing what you know, you should ‘write what you are interested in’ because you are more likely to do research in that field even if you have never experienced it. Each presenter left the listeners with suggested books to read around each genre or author.
Following the Literary Society presentations was a book quiz led by school Librarian Mrs Pilkington. There were 10 questions in each of the six rounds, which included Children’s Books (Which South American country is Paddington Bear from?), Classics (What was Phileas Fogg challenged to do?), Fantasy and Sci-Fi (Tom Marvolo Riddle is the alter-ego of which evil wizard?), and Film adaptations (John Malkovich and Gary Sinise played which famous duo in the 1992 adaptation of Of Mice and Men?). Additional tests of knowledge included a picture round and lucky dip, so there was plenty of variety to appeal to book lovers of all types, and lots of fun was had by all.
In addition to their visits from two special visitors, Infants and Juniors celebrated by dressing up as their favourite book characters and taking part in bookish activities throughout the day.
Treasure Hunt: During the morning assembly, Mrs Watkins announced that the recent high winds had caused lots of disruption for the giant from Julia Donaldson’s book The Smartest Giant in Town, scattering his clothing all around the school. It was up to the children to search for the giant’s clothing in a treasure hunt throughout the day.
Lower Prep were excited to show their costumes to their classmates and share with them the books on which their characters were based. They also read Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lancome, joining in with the repeated refrains of the story and trying to guess the animal on each page. Then, they practised their subtraction using the story The Shopping Basket by John Burmingham to prompt them. They also had fun making their own animal bookmarks to take home.
Upper Prep had a visit from our very own author and illustrator, Ms Emma Robertson, who read her book The Boobybirds in Lockdown to the class and told them about how she had taken inspiration from her family’s personal experiences during lockdown. The children then worked collaboratively on a sequel called The Boobybirds After Lockdown, which shows Boobybirds enjoying the lovely things that we can participate in once more, including clubs, school, water slides, trips out, going on holiday, and lots more. The finished book now takes pride of place on the UP bookshelf.
Year 2 all received invitations to join Mrs Grove on an adventure into Narnia. As they arrived, the children stepped through the wardrobe and found themselves in Mr Tumnus’ house. The class did some wonderful descriptive writing as they retold Lucy’s entrance into Narnia in their own words. They all enjoyed eating Turkish Delight with the White Witch, and then wrote a letter to persuade her to allow the Narnians to celebrate Christmas. Finally, the children made shields to take into battle against the White Witch and celebrated their win triumphantly!
Year 3 tackled some Roald Dahl-themed questions in Maths, which included calculating the length of Fantastic Mr Fox’s tail and thinking about the fraction of Matilda’s books that have already been read. They created some colourful bookmarks, played World Book Day Bingo, and wrote persuasive book reviews. They also enjoyed an engaging visit from author Alison Miles and Snippy the Crab.
Year 4 tested their book knowledge by dividing into teams and taking a book quiz. They also enjoyed designing their own bookmarks and shared some of the stories they had recently written, on the theme of Robin Hood. Alison Miles also paid the class a visit in the afternoon, telling the children all about how she illustrated her books and used rhyme to tell her stories.
In Year 5, the pupils took a World Book Day focus on their Maths lesson, completing a code breaker to find out who won the dress competition. They also made some lovely bookmarks to help them keep their place in all of the fantastic books they will be reading.
As part of our World Book Day celebrations, two special guests visited our Infants and Juniors to help give them a new perspective on how books are created.
Illustrator Adam Larkum
During a special morning assembly, the children had a marvellous opportunity to learn from Adam Larkum, illustrator of many books including One Hundred Steps: The Story of Captain Sir Tom, One
Hundred Reasons, The Plesiosaur’s Neck, A Short History of the World, and The Story of Chocolate. Mr Larkum shared lots of engaging stories about the joys and challenges of illustrating books—including the lengthy process of creating a prehistoric creature with anatomical accuracy, and the perils of drinking too much hot chocolate while illustrating a book about chocolate! He described his process of beginning a drawing very loosely, using rough scribbles to get the angle of things just right, and then rubbing the scribbles out when he is putting in the final details. He then demonstrated the stages of this process with one of his recent illustrations, a tricky scene of a man cutting grass on a wall using a lawnmower. Mr Larkum described to the children how he loves to draw all the time; and provided encouragement to aspiring illustrators by affirming that the more you draw, the more natural it becomes. A big thanks to Mr Larkum for an inspiring peek into the world of illustrating.
Author Alison Miles
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lison Miles is the author and illustrator of the Snippy the Crab books, the tales of an adventurous little crab whose escapades are detailed in a series of longer-length, rhyming picture stories. On World Book Day, Ms Miles visited the Year 3 and 4 classrooms to read from some of her books and answer many questions from the curious pupils, who wanted to know all about her books and illustrations, and the sea creatures she writes about. Ms Miles, who began writing her books years ago but only began to pursue her new career in earnest during lockdown, explained to the children that she has always loved poetry and was determined to write her books in rhyme.
However, she discovered how challenging it is to get rhyming books like hers published in today’s global market, because of the difficulty in making them accessible in other languages. Undeterred, she decided to publish the books herself, and created her own illustrations—for which she was selected as a Bologna Children’s Book Fair artist 2021—using an iPad! Today, she is working on her seventh book and the series is being listed by Manchester Poetry Library. The children thoroughly enjoyed learning all about her adventures as well as Snippy’s. To find out more about Ms Miles and Snippy, go to alisonjmiles.co.uk.
