Let’s make World Book Day more inclusive

Let’s make sure we focus on the pleasure of reading, not the pressure to have the best costume say Georgina Burt and Grace Dunne from our Poverty Proofing and Participation Team.

As children in over 100 countries across the world celebrate World Book Day we salute and acknowledge the purpose and ethos of the charity ‘World Book Day.’ For 24 years, they have strived to ensure that every child across the country is provided with their own book to take home, with the mission of ‘encouraging children to explore the pleasures of books and reading’.

While this mission is essential in our society and to be encouraged, we have found many challenges around the delivery of World Book Day within schools through our Poverty Proofing the School Day work.

Since last World Book Day, parents, children and teachers have all been under increased pressure as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. After a stressful year of school closures and home schooling for many, families could be feeling the strain to come up with an imaginative costume for their children this World Book Day. For some families, however, the pressures will be not only creative but also financial.

Parents and children alike have expressed time and time again the pressure that having to provide a dressing up outfit for their child can have on household budgets, and the feeling of dejection and disappointment as some children always seem to miss out on the opportunity for dressing up.

Regularly we go into schools and see pictures of classes of children dressed up in outfits of their favourite book, while two or three children have to suffer the consequences of not having an outfit and just wearing their school uniform.

It would be easy to delight in the costumes that were on show, if we didn’t already know the stories behind the pictures that we’ve heard from the mouths of children:. ‘My parents are struggling with money’, ‘My mum didn’t have time’, ‘We didn’t get enough notice’, ‘I think that my parents forgot’.

Some parents have told us they aren’t going to send their children in on World Book Day as it costs too much money – a clear example of how costly school activities can impact upon children’s attendance and attainment. Let’s be honest – which parent really wants to send their child to school in uniform on a day when their classmates will be having fun dressing up?

While World Book Day should be an essential part of school life and celebrated in all its forms, we have to move away from the idea that it is all about dressing up. I know some children (and teachers!) really enjoy this, but we have to balance the benefits of dressing up with the negative impact this can have on some of our most disadvantaged children.

What can schools do instead of dressing up for World Book Day?

The solution can be simple, with many schools moving away from the dressing up ideas. How about:

• Pupils creating outfits or head dresses in school during the week leading up to World Book Day, with the big reveal on the day itself? Pupils could also be given a plain t-shirt to decorate with the front cover of their favourite book.
• Providing a ‘junk box’ of fabric and other craft materials, and challenging pupils to create a costume in a set period of time. They could then put on a catwalk show and guess who their friends have dressed up as?
• Decorating masks or designing a front cover for their favourite book on a plain t-shirt
• Teaming up with local fancy dress shops and putting out a costume rail so that children can either bring their own or use one of the dressing up outfits provided at school.

This year’s theme of ‘Share a story’ is a beautifully simple one, focusing on the joy of reading together and coming back to the original focus of World Book Day. Schools could focus on this aspect of sharing by asking teachers to read their favourite stories and talk about why it is so special to them. Pupils in school could have a storytelling session with blankets and hot chocolate, or schools could send a ‘Sharing stories box’ home to pupils, including their World Book Day book and a sachet of hot chocolate each for them and their parent or carer to enjoy together.

While some schools opt to have a pyjama or onesie day instead, it’s important to consider how these items can also be expensive, and the pressure that children may feel under to have the most up to date and fashionable option.

We have to ensure that those children who do not have the money for dressing up outfits are not singled out, and some simple changes can eliminate another barrier that children with less financial backing can have in school.

The result of incorporating these changes has, on many occasions, been incredibly positive with some head teachers being thanked by parents for rethinking how World Book Day has been carried out. Coming up with a really imaginative idea (like dressing up a potato as a favourite character) can even gain a school positive press coverage.

So let’s think about the implications World Book Day sometimes has on disadvantaged children and the steps we can make within school to ensure that no child is missing out so that every child has equal access to the opportunity that this fantastic celebration presents.

For more information on ideas and opportunities for World Book Day then please do get in contact with us at Children North East at [email protected]