Published on: 21 August 2014






Book Week celebrations were held in the Preparatory and Senior Schools this week and last week respectively. The theme, Connect to Reading, inspired Prep boys and teachers’ annual assembly, parade, competitions and other activities, while the Senior School welcomed a writer-in-residence and hosted the Library Long Lunch.

The highlight of the Preparatory School week, the Book Week Assembly, included a Book Week Parade and highly anticipated staff play. Other activities included the annual Decorate Your Classroom Door and poster competitions, and lunchtime activities in the library including crosswords, puzzle making, board games and colouring-in.

On Wednesday, Christ Church took part in the annual Readers’ Challenge at Methodist Ladies’ College, where teams read 18 books nominated in the National CBC Children’s Book Awards and compete against other schools in a series of heats. From the 12 teams from six schools, Harrison Tay (Year 6), Michael Flint (Year 4) and Gaius Gould (Year 4) finished second – a great result considering most of the other competitors were Year 6 students. Well done also to Kartikeya Kaushal (Year 6), Mason Surtees (Year 6) and Tom McGrath (Year 6) who tied for third place.

Prep Teacher Librarian Mary Hookey said the boys also had the opportunity to ‘meet the author’ during a Skype session with Norman Jorgensen, author of Jack’s Island, The Last Viking, In Flanders’ Fields and many more. “The boys really made the most of the opportunity to talk to one of Australia’s friendliest authors,” she said.

In the Senior School last week, highly acclaimed young adult author Scot Gardner was the Senior Library’s writer-in-residence. Mr Gardner facilitated writing workshops with several Years 7 to 9 classes – his enthusiastic and humorous presentation style keeping boys thoroughly engaged in each session.

Teacher Librarian Lia de Sousa said the author had the boys’ creativity flowing with a variety of interesting writing activities including a 20-word challenge in which they were not allowed to use words with ‘e’ in them. “The fun and warm atmosphere that Scot created had the boys eagerly wanting to share their writing with their peers,” Ms de Sousa said. “We felt extremely lucky to have this very talented storyteller as our 2014 writer-in-residence – an opportunity made possible by a Parents’ Association grant.”

The Senior Library also hosted its second Library Long Lunch for the year. The event, introduced last year and held in the middle of the library, is a celebration of reading in the tradition of a long table lunch. Selected students and staff, along with special guest Scot Gardner, attended the lunch and had the opportunity to chat with like-minded readers about books they loved or had recently read.