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We are excited to let you know that we are going to celebrate World Book Day on Thursday 6th March 2025, and would like to invite you to join us in helping your child to make the most of this special occasion.

World Book Day celebrates the joy and value of books and reading, especially for children. To help get them started on their reading journey, every child will receive a £1 World Book Day Book Token. You can exchange your £1/€1.50 World Book Day book token for a FREE book until 23rd March 2025. You can help your child choose their £1/€1.50 book by showing them the
exciting ‘Look Insides’ at worldbookday.com/books.

Getting a free £1/€1.50 book for your child is easy – simply take your book token to your nearest bookseller (which could be a supermarket) and swap it for a World Book Day £1/€1.50 book  OR get £1/€1.50 off any book or audiobook costing £2.99/€3.99 or more. You can find participating retailers at Participating retailers – World Book Day

On Thursday 6th March 2025, your child might like to come dressed as their favourite book character – please note that this is optional. Please click on this link for some dressing up ideas: World Book Day Dress Up Ideas

Alternative ideas to dressing up include:

• children bringing in a shoe box decorated inside to depict their favourite story,
• or bringing in a potato, spoon or kitchen roll that has been transformed into a book character

Or your child might like to wear their comfiest clothes for reading or pyjamas! (For practical reasons, we suggest no onesies
please).
Reading for pleasure is incredibly important. You can join us in building your child’s enthusiasm for books well beyond World Book Day by reading together regularly. Reading stories together for just ten minutes a day will encourage a love of reading and it is fun for everyone! Reading and sharing stories can happen anywhere at any time. If your child would like to bring in their
favourite book from home on Thursday 6th March, they are very welcome to do so (please name label).

Don’t forget that we have two virtual libraries on our School website; each book cover is hyperlinked to a virtual reading (including some being read by members of staff!). You can find our favourite picture books along with books about some really important themes like ‘similarities and differences’, ‘Black Lives Matter’, and ‘feelings and emotions’. Please encourage your child to take a look by clicking on these links: Virtual Library with members of staff reading stories and Virtual Library.

Visit worldbookday.com for lots of ideas and activities to enjoy all year round. Here are a couple of our favourites:
• Find book recommendations, free audiobooks and more in the World Book Day Family Hub.
• Help your child discover more great reads with the ultimate list of Reading Recommendations at worldbookday.com/reading-recommendations

Children are never too young to start their journey with books, and the benefits of reading are enormous—so we hope, like us, you will use World Book Day to celebrate it with your child.

With best wishes,
Mrs Lucy Richardson and Mrs Eileen Beechey
Deputy Heads and English Learning Leaders

We have organised for the children in all junior classes to have a First Aid workshop in school on either 11^th or 12^th March, led by a company called ‘Mini First Aid’. Mini First Aid have created Multi Award winning classes for children from as young as 3 years old; classes have been developed with education specialists to make sure that the subjects covered are appropriate for the age and ability of the child, but also that the teaching styles are innovative, memorable and fun. We have worked with Mini First Aid before and look forward to welcoming them back to St Mary’s.

The children will learn about:

• How they can help themselves and each other should they or their friends become unwell or injured.
• What CPR is and how it is administered (the children may have opportunity to practice techniques on mannequins)
• How to help if someone is choking or has experienced more day to day injuries such as bleeds, burns and bumps to the head.

The interactive workshop will be 60-90 minutes depending on age, to allow the children to have every opportunity to practice techniques and learn essential new, life-long skills. They will each receive a certificate of participation too! This learning will be part of the children’s PSHE ‘Healthy Me’ unit.