Reading Quality Mark - GOLD Award! | Knotty Ash Primary School

We were delighted to be awarded the top GOLD award in the Liverpool Reading Quality Mark. Reading remains a priority throughout Knotty Ash with regular special events as well as reading through the curriculum.

World Book Day!

We celebrated World Book Day in our school again this year and once again the children and staff did us proud with the effort and imagination that went into their costumes. We all dressed as our favourite character from a book and spent the day doing some book-themed activities! A great day was had by all.

Reading in the Community

Some of our Knotty Ash children have been taking some time out of their day to visit our neighbours at Thomas Leigh Care Home on Thomas Lane. One lunch time a week a group of children go over to the care home to share stories and poems with the residents. The aim of the project is to bring our love for reading to our local community. Residents from the care home are also invited to our half-termly Read-Ins, which we host at our school (see below for more details of these).

Pupils get masterclass from Nick Sharratt

Pupils from our school got to test out their drawing skills when they met children's author and illustrator, Nick Sharratt. Nick came to visit our excited children (and staff) as part of a tour to enhance reading, vocabulary building, empathy and confidence. During the visit Nick read some of his celebrated stories and gave the children tips on how to draw some of his characters. The children were also able to take part in some of the stories, dressing up as vikings! We were also joined at our school by children from St. Sebastian's and St. Cuthbert's Primary Schools, who came to share with us this wonderful experience. Thank you for taking time to help to inspire the children of Knotty Ash Nick - we loved it!

Librarians visit Central Library

Our school Librarians took a special visit to Central Library to check out the facilities and to get inspiration for literature to purchase for our school. Whilst there they were given a guided tour and became library members. Some of our other classes have followed the Librarians to Central Library as we aim to allow all of our children and families access to this service by becoming members. If your child's class have not yet visited the library, they soon will.

Book Club

Knotty Ash Kindle Book Clubs meet once a week (during lunchtimes). The children read, laugh and discuss the stories that they read together with their teachers. For any children interested in joining one of the book clubs please see Miss Geering or Mr England for more information.

Knotty Ash Book Swap

As part of of our reading for pleasure ethos, Knotty Ash School run a book-swap twice weekly. On a Monday morning, and on a Friday afternoon, our book trolley will be on the Infant Playground stacked with literature for children and adults alike. Why not go and spend a bit of time with the trolley and choose yourself a good book to read at your leisure.

'Bring a bedtime story to school' event

We celebrated National Storytelling week at Knotty Ash by holding a series of events around reading and the art of storytelling. Our KS2 children focused their attentions on Angela McAllister's 'Leon and the Place Between', and KS1 looked at Nick Sharratt's 'Shark in the Park.' Our children took part in many different events, all set up to allow them to fully immerse themselves in these two stories. Have a look at some of the images above to see what they were getting up to. Oh, and they all wore their pyjamas for school...and brought in their favourite bedtime stories! Lots of fun was had by all!

American Themed 'Read-In'

Our themed Read-In evenings continued this term with an American themed evening. Our guests were invited into school to listen to stories (read by our teachers) written by American authors; or stories based in America. Our Starbooks cafe did a roaring trade; with pizza, hot-chocolate and bagels amongst the favourites on offer! We hope all that attended had a wonderful evening.

Desert Island Books Trailer

Mr England Desert Island Books

Mrs Igoe Desert Island Books

Reading/Book Review Competition!

We are running a very exciting competition to promote reading within our school. We are asking children to read Pamela Butchart's 'Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies' and write a book review. Children have until 31st March to read the book and submit their entries. All book reviews must be 'tweetable' and therefore are limited to no more than 140 characters long (remember to count the spaces too!)

The winning book review will win a brand new Kindle Fire tablet, to be presented at a prize ceremony.

Entry forms are available from the school office or can be downloaded using the link below. The book is available from most good book stores, priced at £5.99. We also have a limited supply of the books available for the children to read during school hours.

Good luck to all entrants!

Book Review Competition.docx

Christmas themed 'Read-In!'

Each half-term our school hosts a 'book-in'. We invite our children, parents and families into school for an evening of reading hosted by our teachers and staff. The above photos are from our Christmas themed evening. As well as enjoying our walk-through reading experience, our visitors could help themselves to hot-chocolate, biscuits and mince pies!

Celebrating Roald Dahl's 100th Birthday!

Our whole school celebrated Roald Dahl's 100th birthday in the only way we know how...by dressing up as our favourite Roald Dahl character! We had a wonderful day of themed activities and story telling.

Visit to Waterstones

Our School Librarians went on a trip to Waterstones at Liverpool 1. They went to spend some book tokens which were very kindly donated to our school by The High Sheriff of Merseyside. They spent a long time looking through all of the different books on offer and made some lovely selections to bring back to school.

Reading Quality Mark - GOLD Award!