Books are the doorway to adventure for Rydon pupils in creative challenge

Rydon Community College celebrated World Book Day last Thursday with a special creative challenge that involved the whole school.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis SUS-141103-091111001The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis SUS-141103-091111001
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis SUS-141103-091111001

Every tutor group was assigned a different children’s book from a random draw and they then had just two hours in the afternoon to transform their classroom door into something that represented it.

“It felt like an idea that would get everyone involved,” said Head of English Richard Self.

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“We work hard on promoting reading for pleasure at Rydon, but the excuse to get everyone off timetable for the afternoon to celebrate books and do something creative was too much to resist.

“The brief was for each class to produce something that showed themes or characters from the books as a door, because opening the pages of a book is often the doorway to adventure and excitement for children.

“I was hoping to see things like the entrance to the Griffindor common room from Harry Potter, or the view through the back of the wardrobe into Narnia, but the end results were absolutely amazing. Every finished door was a masterpiece. The imagination and teamwork the pupils displayed was a real credit to the Rydon spirit.”

The classes were given nothing more than coloured paper and glue to visualise their ideas, although resourceful pupils brought in extra materials for finishing touches, as well as costumes to dress up as characters from the books they were representing. Some classes’ creations even expanded beyond just the doors and began to creep down corridor walls.

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“It’s nice to reflect on books and to be creative,” said participant William Cranford as he added to his class’s display on ‘The Hobbit’ by JRR Tolkien,

“We got all our materials sorted out quickly and we’re working well together as a class.”

Kayleigh Poulter was part of the crew reporting on the event for the school newspaper and also noted the cooperation between pupils: “Everyone was working as a team and they were all encouraging each other,” she observed.

“Some people came out as natural leaders because they had so little time to finish the task.

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“Most classes had planned in advance so they could divide up the different parts and the finished doors came together quickly at the end. It showed our school’s Enterprise specialism well.”

Louis Sessions, whose class were working on ‘The Recruit’ by Robert Muchamore, thought the event was a good way of thinking about reading. He said: “I can see it might interest people in a book they haven’t read. A couple of people in our class have read the book we have and they said it’s great, so more of us will read it now.”

Report and pictures contributed by Rydon Community College.