One Bowraville school went above and beyond this year in its efforts to celebrate literacy and foster a love of reading and writing in its students.
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Book week parades have been a rite of passage for primary schoolers for decades. But organisers at St Mary's Primary School decided to combine the annual dress-up with a writer's festival.
Students from the Pre-school and St Mary's Primary formed small groups and rotated around a series of writing workshops
Indigenous staff presented a cultural writing workshop teaching students Gumbaynggirr language and symbols.
A workshop to learn how to write creative 'lightning' starts to text saw the students collaborating and coming up with fantastic descriptions and introductions.
Students also wrote letters to each other to be delivered by Postman Pat (the principal) the following day.
A highlight of the day was the introduction of local author Joy Le Cerf who shared writing tips with the school's budding authors. Each child got to go home with a gift of their own copy of Joy's book, 'If I were a Bird'.
Margrit Rickenbach also brought her masks and talents, with students participating in a range of dramatic activities.
Staff put their creative caps on to create a Mad Hatter's Tea Party for the school community to share, complete with Alice, The Mad Hatter and The Queen of Hearts and a member of her card army.
And noone was too young to celebrate a love of books - the Kindy kids were treated to a dress-up story time by Heather Stuart and each received a voucher to choose their own book from the Coffs Harbour Book Warehouse.
Even the Book Parade was turned into something out of the ordinary, with a special photo shoot which captured the little characters in front of their own unique scene with the magic of green screen.
Visiting support teacher Barb Nance was blown away by the enthusiasm.
"I really enjoyed how much all the staff got into dressing up for book week. It reads as such a silly sentence, but there was something about the commitment to making the day something way out of the ordinary, that really caught the imagination of the kids," she said.
I loved the contribution of the unique talents within the community.
"I loved the Mad Hatters tea party, where the kids got to experience being served something fabulous and fancy, and the care expressed in all the small details of this.
"I loved the program Brenda and Uncle Mark were doing with the Indigenous kids - with the language posters on the wall, the books they had created of their stories, and learning to "read" indigenous art by practising symbols in chalk all over the ground.
"I loved how effortlessly the kids got into all that was on offer, they were having such a great time.
"Again, I am still struggling to articulate what all of these experiences together is. But I think it was a moment that captured something everyone gets instinctively.
I am quietly confident that when we give children such rich and creative experiences, we are giving them a whole lot more then we think we are.
"Three cheers for everyone, it was such a joy to witness."
