Bow Girls Spring Into Reading

Our girls have had three brilliant boosts to their Reading Year this Spring term!                                     

We started in February with a visit to Blue Gate Fields School where Year 7 girls met award winning author Cathy Cassidy and heard about her new book, ‘The Broken Heart Club’; an intriguing story about how friendships are made, lost and rediscovered. Several girls bought books and got them signed.

Next, on World Book Day, we were fortunate enough to meet the world famous, ex Children’s Laureate Dame Jacqueline Wilson when she came to Tower Hamlets. Her appearance was for many of the schools in the Borough, and we were among 1,000 young people gathered in York Hall to hear her speak about the 100 plus books she has written, her inspirations and the way she writes them. In particular she spoke about her new books ‘Butterfly Club’ and ‘Wave Me Goodbye’.

Her talk was followed by a question and answer session and then selected students from each school got books signed by her.

One of our students, Kitty Wheatley, had made (with the help of her sister) a ‘Welcome’ sign that Dame Jacqueline was also kind enough to sign for her.

As we could only get 2 books signed we will hold a competition in the Summer term and students will have a chance to win one of our copies and other Jacqueline Wilson themed items.

Finally, as part of our International Women’s Day celebrations, we had a visit here at Bow from Sufiya Ahmed. Sufiya came to talk to our Year 9 girls about her book, ‘Secrets of the Henna Girls’, which deals with the issues surrounding arranged and forced marriages. Despite the difficult subject matter, it was an entertaining visit. Sufiya told us lots about herself and the various jobs she had done while trying to get her work published. She also pointed out that there are lots of career opportunities involved in the world of publishing.

Sufiya read an extract about the engagement ceremony described in the book and some of the girls got to dress up and act it out!

We presented some copies of the books as awards so students could get them signed and I am already getting feedback about how much they are enjoying it!

It was a great start to Spring for the girls, but we haven’t forgotten our boys so look out for news of some stunning Summer reading events for them too.

Ms Clark

 Learning from Every Situation – The Bow Way