La Retraitre school celebrates World Book Day |06 March 2020

World Book Day is upon us and primary schools across the country were yesterday filled with over-excited, undersized BFGs, Snow White and Disney princesses who paraded dressed as their favourite characters.

La Retraite school, which has been participating in the event for the past three years, organised activities throughout the day to celebrate the joys of reading.

“This initiative is aimed at turning kids on to reading,” said Sheila Radegonde, head teacher of the school.

She added that although the activities are aimed at reading, students are allowed to dress up as their favourite character as long as they also bring the book on which the character is based.

To kick start the day the school organised a parade where students marched to the beat of classic songs and displayed their costumes; some even took the time to tell a short story based on their costume.

“What is different this year is that teachers are also participating in the parade, and at the end of the day we will have a special assembly where students with the best costume will receive a prize. There will be a prize for best ready made costumes and one for best home made costumes,” said the head teacher.

The teachers were also encouraged to organise their special reading activities in their classrooms which saw the participation of parents and other members of the community including some elderly citizens from the home for the elderly. Parents and students were also reached out to donate books to the school as there is a need.

“Every year when we organise the activity we try to bring something new and this year we launched a door book jacket competition where each class decorated their doors in their favourite cartoon characters, and to avoid bias, we invited art teachers from outside of the schools to judge and reward the best class,” said Ms Radegonde.

The school also encourages reading throughout the year as they dedicate 15 minutes every Wednesday to reading, the head teacher said, adding that online books are also popular among pupils.

The accompanying photos taken by Jude Morel show some highlights of the Book Day activities at La Retraite school yesterday.

Christophe Zialor