Throughout the week beginning Monday 4th March, Didcot Girls' School held a number of activities, talks and competitions in celebration of this year's World Book Day.

Students enjoyed a World Book Day video in their assemblies, which featured many different members of staff reading sections of 'Little Red Riding Hood' from Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes.

Tuesday saw Year 7 enjoy a talk from M. C. Stevens, author of the upcoming 'Warrior Monkeys' book series. Her talk was funny and inspiring, and explained how the important values taught through martial arts - like focus and resilience - are invaluable throughout wider life. Mary then went on to hold a workshop on the writing and publishing process with Year 11 and Year 13 students.

Our celebrations for World Book Day itself saw Pam Smy return to DGS on Thursday to talk to Year 8 about her book 'Thornhill' and the fascinating creative process behind it. Selected students then also took part in a workshop with Pam, where they worked on creating atmosphere in their drawings.

This was followed by our annual book character costume competition, which gets bigger and bigger every year! Students had the option of coming to school in their usual school uniform, or dressed as a favourite book character. Participating students paid £1 each, which is being donated to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.

Mrs Fulwell, Mrs Ashton and Miss Roberts had the very difficult task of judging whose costumes were the best and, in the end, decided on winners in four categories:

Upper School winner: Katie-Ann Pullin
Lower School winner: Erika Hanks
Challenging read winner: Juliet Paxton-Doggett
Group winner: Lily, Abi, Keira, Lily, Florence and Eliza in Year 7

In the afternoon, we welcomed Year 5 students from Sutton Courtenay Primary School, who took part in some paired reading with one of our Year 8 classes.

During the course of the week, students were also encouraged to scour the school site for book-related facts. Ennis came in first place, with the highest number of correct answers recorded. 10 bonus points were also awarded to Adie house, thanks to Carys Sharp submitting the most interesting book fact of the contest, which was that The Beatles had wanted to feature in a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, which would star John Lennon as Gollum!

Other week-long activities included story-telling and book sharing in the library, led by our sixth form students, and a book swap enabling students to get their hands on some fantastic second-hand books!

Over the past weeks, Miss Thursfield has been working with 7ELE to produce a new mural to go up in the library. This has been completed in time for our Book Week, and now stands as a stunning celebration of books that will last for years to come.

It has been an action packed week of celebrating all kinds of literature. Thank you to all the staff and students who got involved to share their love of books with each other. We look forward to next year's celebrations for World Book Day!