Academic year 2023-2024

Reading champions

Mrs Priddy has been overwhelmed by 50+ applications to become an OBS reading champion! She will be choosing children to become reading champions on Thursday 16th November so watch this space.

Book fair visit

The book fair will be returning from Thursday 23rd November - Tuesday 28th November.

We are running a competition to draw the front cover of your favourite book to win a £5 token to spend at the book fair. Mrs Priddy can't wait to see your gorgeous drawings!

ACADEMIC YEAR 2022-2023

Clover Green visit

On Wednesday 17th July, Mrs Tee and Mrs Priddy took 9 children from year 4 to read to the residents at Clover Green residential home. The children chosen are some of our fantastic reading champions. The children were impeccably behaved and the residents were very complimentary over their fluent and expressive reading. We have promised to return regularly next academic year. Well done children! You were a credit to school.

Library visits in year 1

We have returned to Basford Library this year in year 1. We are aiming to have all children being regular library users next academic year! The year 1 children loved choosing books to borrow and they have been such enthusiastic readers!

Pyjamarama

On Friday 16th of June, Old Basford School celebrated pyjamarama. The children were invited to come to school comfortable and bring their favourite book to read. We also invited parents and carers to school for books and biscuits on the field. We were blown away by the amount of people who attended this event! There was such a lovely atmosphere and so many adults said how lovely it was to read somewhere different. We used the books gifted to us by the Chase Rewarding Futures programme and these were a huge hit. Look out for them appearing in your classrooms soon OBS!

Spark book awards

This year we are participating in the Spark Book Awards in the picture book category. Every class is going to vote for the books in order of favourite to least. Our votes will then be counted towards the final awards. We also got extra copies of the short listed books to give to some of our children who we think would need them. We will be announcing our school winners in June.

World Book Day

Old Basford School celebrated World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March. We asked children to come in fancy dress if they wanted to or to express themselves through their hair. On the day we focused on celebrating a love of books by sharing books with different year groups, reading to our friends and various other book activities. Year 3 enjoyed attending a virtual author's event where they wrote a poem and listened to a story. In year 1 the children watched the author of Dave the pigeon talk about their book and then they drew their own Dave the pigeon with the illustrator. In F2 parents were invited in to enjoy story time with their children. We had a great time enjoying books together!

Reading for pleasure in year 1

Year one love reading for pleasure and they jumped at the opportunity to make their own books using the book creator app. Here are some photos of them enjoying themselves.

Using our book fair money rewards

Our book fair money was used to buy new lovely books for our nursery children to enjoy. Here are some photos of them taking time to read for pleasure.

Reading champions and librarians

We are so proud of our 34 reading champions who have begun supporting our early readers during a Friday assembly this week (7.11.22). We have also welcomed 9 fantastic librarians to the reading team and they have made a brilliant start by supporting the book fair and organising the new books for our library. Thank you OBS!

Bookmark charity books

This Autumn we were so grateful to the Bookmark charity for providing us with over 200 beautiful new books for school. We were delighted by these beautiful new books. All of the teachers loved choosing new books to add to their class libraries. Thank you Bookmark!

The book fair!

We were delighted to hold another book fair this October. Once again, we are so grateful to all the families who were able to support school by purchasing books from our book fair. Thank you also to our librarians who supported the book fair and helped to run the used book stall. We raised over £450 and we get to keep half of the money raised to spend on new books for school! Thanks again for supporting us by buying lovely, new books.

ACADEMIC YEAR 2021-2022

Queen's Jubilee Book

This week children at Old Basford School have received a special book! To commemorate the Queen's Platinum jubilee, the government have produced a free keepsake book for primary school children.  The book tells a story of a young girl, Isabella, visiting her Great Granny Joyce who tells her about The Queen and this year’s Jubilee. The book includes famous quotes from the Queen, facts on the coronation ceremony and a timeline of Queen Elizabeth’s life. 

Book fair

We were delighted to hold another book fair from the 28th April to the 5th of May. Once again, we are so grateful to all the families who were able to support school by purchasing books from our book fair. We raised over £750 and we get to keep half of the money raised to spend on new books for school! Thanks again for supporting us by buying lovely, new books.

Supporting reading for pleasure at home

Here are some resources to help you to support your child develop a love of reading at home.

City library books

Due to the City library relocating, an opportunity arose for us to buy some discounted books for school. Mrs Priddy was delighted to return with over 250 new books for school! These books have replenished our library, added to our classroom books and joined our reading for pleasure books to take home. Here are some photos of the children enjoying reading them.

World Book Day

What a brilliant day for enjoying books! The OBS mission for teachers was to fill your day with lots of book talk and enjoyment and we think they did a brilliant job! From book picnics to illustrator tutorials, it was a fantastic day across school. All of the children chose something comfortable to wear to school and they brought their favourite book too.

What happened on the day?

In nursery the children brought their best book to school and shared it with a friend. Over in F2 the children met up with year 4 to share some stories in a 'booknic' complete with cakes. In year 1 the children had a book tasting event where they got to try some tasty reads. Year 2 joined the illustrator Axle Sheffler as they illustrated Zog together. In year 3 children created dream jars inspired by the BFG and year 4 illustrated their favourite book cover again. In year 5 there was a fantastic book quiz and year 6 enjoyed more book tasting, especially when there was a spare copy that they could enjoy with a friend. 

The day was finished by a visit from a mystery teacher reader which all of the children enjoyed.

See some photos below from our lovely day.

Our favourite books

On World Book Day we brought in our favourite books. Mrs Priddy spoke to children across school about what their favourite book was and why. It was great to see such a range of books being enjoyed by our children. Some of us liked a book because it was funny, it might have been full of facts or a great one to enjoy at bedtime.

Teacher lending library

To ensure we always have lots of lovely books to choose from, there is now a lending library in the staffroom. Mrs Priddy frequently updates the books in there for teachers and teaching assistants to choose from for story time. There are also books for the staff to borrow and discuss if they would like to. We even have some books for staff at school to borrow that are for educational research!

Reading spine

Please look below to find our updated reading spine which shows the shared reading texts for each year group. All children enjoy learning to read as a whole class whether it is from 'big book' in the foundation stage or shared reading from year 2+. This overview will be updated each term to reflect any changes in texts chosen. We are always on the look out for an even better book at OBS!

World Book Day is 25! 

We will be once again celebrating World Book Day on the 3rd March. 

We are really looking forward to World Book Day where the children can come to school in something comfortable and bring their favourite book. There are all sorts of exciting things planned including a year 4 and F2 'booknic' (a book picnic), mystery class readers and live author talks. Come back to this page for an update after the big day!

New library furniture 

We are pleased to announce that our library is getting a makeover! Children will need to look our for the beautiful new library shelves which will be arriving in March. Photos will be uploaded when our library is ready.

Reading for pleasure newsletter Spring 1

In the newsletter below you can find recommendations of quality books, including some poetry. You can also see what books we have been enjoying in school. Finally there is some information about the World Book Day books which you can use your voucher to buy!

Autumn 2 reading for pleasure newsletter

Please see below for a copy of the second Autumn term newsletter by Mrs Priddy. Remember to let her know if you try any of the recommended books

December book advent

Throughout the month of December Mrs Duffin spread some reading cheer by giving a book a day away to one lucky child in school. Please see some photos below! 

12 days of Christmas reading challenge

Can you read 12 different things over the Christmas holidays? Find a copy of the reading challenge for you to have a go at throughout the month of December! Anyone who completes the reading challenge will receive a whole proud pound! 1 lucky person from each class will also be chosen to get a book to keep.

Book fair update

We were overwhelmed by the support for our book fair this half term. The proceeds have raised over an incredible £650 which will go straight towards buying more books for our school!

Mrs Priddy will be asking each class to choose some books for their class library in the new year.

Thank you for helping us to raise so much money!

Dolly Parton's Big Reading challenge 2021

On Monday 22nd November councillor Woodings came to visit Old Basford School to share some stories with our KS1 children. We loved listening to her favourite stories and we found out more about the Big Reading challenge.

Reading for pleasure assembly

Mrs Priddy's assembly was all about reading for pleasure. You can find a copy of the important messages shared on the PDF below :) 

Celebrate reading at our Book Fair!

The Scholastic Book Fair will be arriving at Old Basford School on the 23rd November, with hundreds of new children’s books to browse and buy. Prices start from £2.99

When: Tuesday 23^rd November till Monday 29^th November

3:20pm – 3:45pm

Where: The back hall

We will also be selling some of our unused classroom books to raise money for new books for school. We will be asking for either a 20p or 50p donation for these books.

Don’t forget that every book you buy can help us get FREE BOOKS for our school library!

Nottingham Contemporary Better Books

We were incredibly lucky at Old Basford school to receive books from the 'Better Books' campaign by Nottingham Contemporary. The books were the result of a lot of fundraising with the aim of getting quality texts into classrooms with a range of perspectives and experiences.

All of these books have been given out to classes for their reading for pleasure book corners and we know our children are already enjoying sharing them together.

Reading for pleasure newsletter

Each half term Old Basford School will be producing our own reading for pleasure newsletter. It will feature a variety of book recommendations, reading updates and tips for reading at home. If you have any suggestions for our next issue please send them Mrs Priddy's way! 

Reading for pleasure books for home

Old Basford School are pleased to announce that all children from F2 - year 6 can now take home an extra 'reading for pleasure' book. These are books that the children can take home without being limited to their reading book band. We encourage our parents and guardians to share these books with your child, especially if they are trickier than their book band level! 

Why not enjoy a story from the OBS staff?

Reading for Pleasure

Old Basford School is a 'Reading for Pleasure' school.  Mrs Priddy will be sharing more information with you about this throughout the academic year.  We have shared with you some stories recorded by our school staff for you to enjoy together.