A week-long celebration of all things literary took place recently at Cheadle Hulme School to mark national World Book Day, raising over £3,000 for charity.
During the week, published authors in the student and staff community delivered talks about their work and staff gave readings from their favourite childhood books.Talks from CHS’s own published authors included sixth form student Ella McKendrick, who has four full-length novels to her name; former student Melanie Richardson who presented her 150 year history of Cheadle Hulme School, Head’s and Tales and junior school teacher Mrs Kate Sargent, whose debut Escape from Versailles was published at the end of last year.Students also enjoyed staff readings of childhood favourites which included a wide range of classic fiction such as H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, George Orwell’s 1984 and 4.50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie.
Lesley Fowler as Mary Poppins
Highlight of the week was a literary balloon debate with staff representing famous literary figures, including Macbeth and Mary Poppins, in an attempt to win over a student audience and stay in the ‘hot-air balloon’.The week culminated in a sponsored readathon. Bookworms were challenged to read as many books as they could in return for charity fundraising, which resulted in over £3,000 of donations for CLIC Sargent, Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity and Readwell.
Head of English, Nigel Westbrook said: “For this year’s World Book Day we wanted to raise the profile of the idea of reading for pleasure across the whole school community. The series of events aimed to help stimulate interest and remind everyone of what fun and delight can be gained from the world of books.”
