March saw the return of Kennet School’s annual BookFest, a month-long celebration of reading, creativity and storytelling across the school.

Throughout the month, pupils took part in a wide range of activities designed to encourage a love of reading. Competitions included a Short Story Competition, a Design a Bookmark Competition, the ‘Guess Who’s Reading?’ challenge and a Mission to discover members of staff’s favourite books.

World Book Day was another highlight of the programme, with pupils and staff dressing up as their favourite literary characters.

BookFest also featured visits from two well-known authors. Poet and author Chris White visited the school to lead a creative writing workshop for selected Year 7 pupils and delivered a poetry session for visiting Year 5 pupils.

Later in the month, Kennet welcomed Author of the Year Ali Sparkes, who spoke to Year 7 and Year 8 pupils about her journey to publication before leading a creative writing workshop. She also judged the Year 7 Shared Reading competition, selecting Matilda’s model from ‘Frozen in Time’ as the winning entry.

Across the month, pupils also enjoyed lunchtime quizzes, the popular Book Grab and the ‘Escape the Library’ challenge, with St Francis House completing the task in record time.

The celebrations concluded with a Scholastic Book Fair in the final week of term, giving pupils the opportunity to browse and purchase new books.

Kennet School would like to thank its librarians for arranging and running the entire BookFest programme, creating a month of activities that encouraged pupils to read, write and share their love of books.