On Tuesday, the children of Atwood were so excited as they prepared for the Grand Opening of the newly refurbished library. In order to celebrate the occasion the school had invited a special guest along to cut the ribbon. Susannah Lloyd is a children’s author who has written many popular children’s books. We were so pleased to have a visit from Susannah as last year she had been the school’s winner of our vote in the Spark Book Awards for her illustrated story ‘Who Ate Steve?’. Susannah Lloyd held special assemblies for the children where she shared her writing journey, showing pictures of her first-ever story that she wrote when she was just 5. She also shared her 5 Top Tips for writing which included;
- – write the book that you most wished existed
- – mighty ideas can grow from very tiny seeds
She even found time to visit Nursery and share a story with them.
Before Susannah got to cut the ribbon she also managed to squeeze in workshops for years 2, 3 and 5.
The Year 2 workshop focused on her award-winning book, Who Ate Steve? The Year 3 and 5 workshops focused on her chapter book series ‘Badgers Are Go’. The children had to consider how they could spot a badger-operated person… could their teacher be a badger? It was decided that Mrs Daulton-Swift and Mrs Weir probably were! Some of the children even got to dress up as badgers.
After all that, it was finally time to open the library. A few selected guests met outside the library while the rest of the school joined the opening via a live stream of the event. With a few brief words about the importance of reading and the joy of books- along with a huge vote of thanks to FOAP for funding the library project, the ribbon was cut and the doors opened for the first few visitors. Since then, all the children have been able to visit our ‘ Reading Forest’ and they are suitably impressed.
Many thanks to Ms Newton and Mrs Smith for organising the day and the whole library refurbishment. Also, once again, thanks to FOAP for funding the refurbishments and for paying for Susannah Lloyd’s visit.
