World Book Week 2025

At St. Stephen’s we like to pull out all of the stops for World Book Week, and this year was no different! Last year’s theme, ‘Magic and Mystery’, was hard to beat and we knew we had to think of something exciting and engaging to capture the imagination of the children. The theme this year in our school was ‘A Carnival of Cultures’ and we welcomed visitors as well as providing lots of opportunities to read for pleasure. We hosted a reading café, held a book fair, scheduled many reading for pleasure sessions and provided opportunities to create artwork and writing linked to our class texts. Each class throughout school was assigned a different text linked to a different culture – EYFS read Pattan’s Pumpkin, Year 1 read Faruq and the Wiri Wiri, Year 2 read Our Nipa Hut, Year 3 read Paolo Emperor of Rome, Year 4 read Journey to the River Sea, Year 5 read Bronze and Sunflower and Year 6 read the Song Walker.  

Our week started with a fabulous visitor – Snora the Explorer! We then had a visit from Phunky Foods who cooked some wonderful dishes from foods around the world. For example, Year 2 cooked yummy southeast Asian inspired vegetable couscous and Year 6 baked traditional Australian Anzac biscuits. It was a fantastic way to immerse ourselves into the culture and explore a range of different ingredients and recipes. We were also delighted to welcome Mrs Fagan and Mr Neumann into school to explore traditional music from other cultures.  

During the week, children thoroughly enjoyed juice and biscuits whilst reading with a buddy from a different year group – they loved it! Children were also able to make a bookmark so they could use it to mark the pages of their favourite texts. The Book Fair was a great success too – with many parents and children visiting to browse the many books we had on offer. We rounded the week off with a World Book Day 2025 quiz, reflecting on the fun and enjoyment of the week. As always, our main corridor in school is themed around our World Book Week events so next time you are in school, please feel free to have a look at our vibrant celebration of cultures from all over the world and see some of the beautiful writing and artwork on display. I think everyone will agree, the week was a great success!