NEWS
World Book Day
By Ms Wenman. 12 March 2020
During lunchtimes in the library, we embraced World Book Day through a variety of activities and competitions from the traditional literary quiz to the quirkier ‘Book on a Tray’, which involved the decoration of trays to represent our well-loved books.
Wellbeing Corner on Monday 2 March
The Taylor Library started the week off by launching the new Wellbeing Corner with an activity on Monday lunchtime. Students were invited to write on the Wellbeing Tree – heart-warming and motivational quotes such as ‘Be the rainbow to someone else’s cloud’ and ‘You don’t have to be perfect.’ The Wellbeing tree will now be displayed in the library so students can add a leaf!
‘Book on a Tray’ competition on Tuesday 3 March
A fun activity on Tuesday lunchtime involved decoration of trays with a variety of objects and creations. Each tray represented a well-loved book. The objective was to guess the identity of each tray and we had five winning teams and two teams were runners up! Lauren and Isabella in UIII (Year 7) won the prize for the most creative tray – Mazerunner by James Dashner.
Visiting author Joanna Jolly
It is always a rewarding experience to welcome alumnae back to The Abbey. On Tuesday 3 March, we were visited by Joanna Jolly, a successful BBC journalist and author. It was wonderful to receive Joanna as a guest at The Abbey thirty-three years after she left us to attend Birmingham University as an English Literature student.
Since leaving The Abbey, Joanna has worked for several media outlets and freelanced as a reporter and producer. During the past decade, she has also travelled widely in her work as a BBC producer in Jerusalem, South Africa, Brussels, Washington and India and spent two years as the BBC correspondent in Kathmandu.
Hearing of a Joanna’s achievements was truly inspiring to the current cohort of sixth form English students, particularly those who are considering a career in journalism. Joanna’s book Red River Girl has recently been published and is available in The Taylor Library in The Senior School.
Fiction 40 Reading Challenge on Monday 9 March
During their English lesson, UIII C (Year 7) represented their year group and paid a visit to LIII (Year 6) as part of the celebrations for World Book Day. The purpose of the trip was to deliver a talk about the Fiction 40 Reading Challenge which is undertaken by the UIII girls every year. Fiction 40 was devised to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of The Taylor Library and is organised by the library staff in conjunction with the English department. The objective of the challenge is for each girl to read 40 books over the course of UIII, choosing a selection of books from a recommended reading list. After the presentation, both Lower and Upper III enthusiastically discussed the benefits of the challenge and shared their ideas about books and reading. It was rewarding for the staff to see the girls so excited about their favourite books and also to witness the warmth and joy exchanged by the girls.
Love of Books
Some present students also shared their love of books and reading though assemblies on ‘influential Books’ and ‘Literary Heroines.’
This love was also shown when our much -loved library stock was recycled in a book sale which raised over £130 pounds for the Senior School charity, UFULU.
The celebrations continued into the following week with a visit from author, Paul Twivy, who met UIV (Year 9) and delivered an inspiring presentation on his career as radio comedian, actor and published author.
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