The Beacon Creates a ‘Buzz About Books’
11 May 2023
The Beacon, an Independent Prep School in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, celebrated World Book Day with a Festival of Words event packed with literature-related activities running over 10 days. The event aimed to create a “buzz about books” across the school and included competitions, arts and crafts, storytelling and reading, performing arts, multi-media activities and creative writing. The event ran from Thursday 2 March to Friday 10 March, kicking off on World Book Day with activities planned to suit different year groups.
Some of the highlights of the Festival of Words event included a drop everything and read session, where an alarm sounded at various times throughout the day to prompt the whole school, teachers and pupils, to stop what they were doing and read their book or listen to storytelling. In another initiative, Years 7 and 8 boys were tasked with devising scripts for video shorts that were filmed in The Beacon ‘Book Booth’. In English lessons, boys in Years 3 to 6 learned about inspiring authors and illustrators and then created their own personalised concertina books which were displayed within the school corridors. A handwriting competition was also held, and boys in Years 2-8 were set the challenge of writing out a poem in the neatest way.
Parents were invited to a Coffee Morning to share their experiences of reading with their children at home, the school also hosted a bookfair, in conjunction with the Chiltern Bookshop, over two afternoons as well as running a charity book collection for the Ihezie Foundation. The Festival of Words event concluded with an art exhibition, showcasing the artwork created by the Beacon boys throughout the school. Visitors were encouraged to display words on a board to underpin how they felt about the exhibition.
The ‘Buzz About Books’ event was a great success, not only for the pupils but the whole Beacon Community.