World Book Day

Golden Grove School-Ysgol Gelli Aur in Pembroke pulled out all the stops in support of World Book Day last week. The school was turned in to a living library on Friday as pupils and staff dressed as characters from children's books.

Attending a special assembly was an array of nurses, wizards, super heroes, Red Riding Hoods, Wally from the Where's Wally? and many many more. Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz could be seen in the corridors and everywhere you looked there were more characters. In every nook and cranny of the school, pupils were to be found reading and being read to. Gasps of delight and mild intrigue were heard from classrooms as teaching staff read a wide range of stories, sharing the task and text via the whiteboards.

World Book Day is a celebration of authors, illustrators and a celebration of the importance of reading. It's the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.

Pupils at Golden Grove-Ysgol Gelli Aur have access to a wide range of books in the school library which is maintained and run by library monitors and junior librarians drawn from each class in Key Stage 2. Pupils will often be found making use of the full range of books from reference, fiction, biographies and those used in the reading schemes.

A number of volunteers visit the school on a weekly basis to hear pupils reading, the sessions are run 1:1 which gives pupils the best possible chance to be prompted and helped with more challenging phrases and pronunciation. Along with accelerated reading schemes and all the other opportunities, pupils get the best possible support.

The day of celebration was topped of with a parents and pupil event in the school hall. Local author Chris Stephens led the event with a castles based quiz and trail. He enthused about reading and getting parents involved in encouraging children to read. Books, both new and pre loved, were available for sale and a raffle draw was held.

All in all, it was a wonderful day of celebration, enthusiastically supported by pupils, parent and teachers-many of who also dressed up.

Headteacher Les Johnson said: "I have been at a number of World Book Day events over the years, Friday's turnout was of a very high standard and I want to than all those pupils, parents and staff who took part. A special thanks to Mrs. Bruce aka Dr. Seuss, for all her hardwork."