World Book Day was celebrated over more than one day at STRS this year. The English department, the DT department and the LRC have combined to create a series of events to inspire writing and nurture the love of reading.

We launched our Love Reading week with the Scholastic Book Fair, which raised over £600 in commission and was really well supported. All of the students in Years 7 to 9 visited the Book Fair with their English teachers and parents at the Y7 Parents Consultation evening were also very keen to buy books as rewards.

At the end of the Book Fair, we welcomed Steve Cole to the school. Steve is a successful author, who has an impressive string of books to his name. He came to talk to us about his Young Bond series and his relationship with the Ian Fleming heritage. He gave the same talk on gadgets and gizmos three times to all of Years 7, 8 and 9. The boys were enthralled, asked lots of interesting questions and bought books, which gave them an opportunity to have them signed and meet the author one-to-one. The DT department then issued a Design a Gadget homework and we look forward to seeing how creative these are.

On World Book Day, we continued the celebration with another author visit for 7C and 9R. They were very lucky to meet English teacher Gabriel Dylan, an up-coming author, who has recently made it on to the WH Smith bestseller list with his book in the horror genre, Whiteout. He talked to the boys about the excitement of becoming an author and the process of getting published. This tied in very nicely with Careers Week, which has been promoted in the LRC this week, and he gave good advice about how to access a career in writing.

The pop-up cafe book exchange has been a great success with hundreds of books exchanged. We have been delighted with the interest in this event and the excitement around the books which students brought in. Our team of 22 Library Monitors have been very actively supporting this venture. Students in Years 7 and 8 have also made bunting of their favourite books and teachers have been displaying posters of their most loved books.

It is exciting to see how the reading culture in the school is alive and well.