Book Week 2008

The 2008 Book Week took ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ as its theme. The storyteller Adam Bushnell entertained the children and staff with a wide variety of stories. He also encouraged the children to use some of his ideas to write their own stories during three very stimulating and exciting workshops with Years 4 and 6.  The ’Heuristics’ made a welcome return to Ranby and they helped all the children to begin to understand how writing and writing implements had developed.

James Pacey, an actor and former pupil of Ranby House, encouraged the children in Years 7 and 8 to develop improvised dramas based on Maurice Sendak’s book, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. The writer, Steve Bowkett talked to all the children about their work and encouraged them to develop their writing skills. He also led workshops with Year 5 on poetry writing.

Local poet, Paul Cookson gave three highly amusing poetry performances for the children and worked with some children in Year 7 on their writing skills. Later in the week he returned for an evening performance for parents and children which proved to be extremely popular with all those who attended.

Finally, children in Years 3 to 5 enjoyed an interesting performance, by the West Midland’s Children’s Theatre, of the Chinese legend, ‘The Golden Dragon’.  Some children were even fortunate enough to be asked to perform roles during the play.

Thanks must go to Mrs. Wilkinson who organised a superb poetry competition and ran a very popular Book Fair, Mrs. Mills for organising the stimulating ‘Design a Book Cover’ competition, Mr. Byfield for his invaluable help in reorganising the timetable and to Mrs. Sibson for her help displaying all the letters and photographs that we received, from numerous celebrities, in response to children’s letters about our Book Week theme.  

Finally, thanks must also go to Mr. Padley for again capturing all the events in some superb photographs and to all the staff who entered into the spirit of the occasion and who supported Book Week. Without the help of all the staff, both teaching and non-teaching, Book Week would not have been the enjoyable, stimulating and memorable event that it most certainly was.

The highlight of the week for many children, however, must have been the opportunity to come dressed as their favourite book.  It was apparent that children and parents had put a lot of time and effort into producing some excellent costumes. Mr. Sibson and I had the unenviable and extremely challenging task of judging this competition, the winners of which, can be found in the News Section by clicking here.

Advanced warning: next year it is the anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne in 1509 and as a result our theme will be ‘The Tudors’ so, what will you be wearing?

Chris Ruck