November Reading Newsletter
At Northmead we understand the importance of children engaging with the natural world. In a world increasingly dominated by technology, time spent outdoors cultivates resilience, social skills, and a sense of wonder, and there is a lot of research which cites the benefits of the natural world for children’s mental health. Initially, we pushed the outdoor teaching agenda in the lower school at Northmead, led by Mr Lewis. To support this learning, there are so many beautiful books published about nature which open up a world of wonder, igniting children’s curiosity. There are some incredible non-fiction books produced for children which combine interesting text with the most beautiful illustrations. Children can explore these over and over again.
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On Wednesday 13th November, Mrs Mansfield and I were proud to take a team of Northmead students to represent our school in a book quiz competition held at Tormead School. We competed against teams from many local schools, including RGS, King's College, Merrow Juniors, Holy Trinity, Guildford High. It was a fun-filled afternoon celebrating books and reading. Lia, Judah, Pippa and Noah M showed great knowledge, correctly answering lots of questions. Between rounds, we heard readings from a range of authors, including Lucy Reynolds, Cath How, Mo O’Hara, Alice Hemming and Margaret Bateson-Hill. I am also pleased to announce that we won a visit from an author which will be organised later in the year. It was also lovely to see some of our ex-pupils representing King's College, demonstrating that their love of reading hasn’t diminished as they have got older.