Warwick Academy celebrates centennial anniversary of Roald Dal’s birth

Air force pilot, spy, Hollywood star, Roald Dahl, the son of Norwegian immigrants to Wales, is best known as one the most adulated children’s book author of this century.

The enthusiasm and excitement of Warwick Academy Primary students, when told that their annual Book Week event would focus on this literary genius, is a testimony of his timeless popularity.

From 7-10 November, educational activities were on offer to expose young readers to the wonderful world of their favourite author.

The school library underwent a makeover for the occasion and welcomed students to a theatre setting that would witness their debut as budding actors.

Year 3 to Year 5 students were invited to perform the BFG and The Witches plays for children adapted by David Wood from Dal’s originals.

Year 1 and Year 2 students played Magic Finger and were invested with the power to turn their classmates into all sorts of animals for a day.

In the meantime, in the classroom, students explored a variety of age-appropriate Roald Dahl’s titles. Inspired by George’s Marvellous Medicine (Year 2), The BFG (Year 4) and James and the Giant Peach (Year 3), students created bottles of Frobscottle drinks, peach smoothies and unusual potions using foul-tasting ingredients ranging from troll boogers (shaving cream) to frog’s eyes (wiggly eyes). Like Danny, the Champion of the World, Year 5 classes imagined their own method for “pheasant poaching” and sold their idea to classmates with promotional pitches and advertising materials.

The Year 6 students explored some of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes including Goldilocks and the Three Bears. After reading the tale, they wrote a very detailed and formal witness statement for the police, in the voice of either Goldilocks or Baby Bear which they later used in a mock trial.

Roald Dal’s literature also provided a pretext to review maths skills: counting specific letters on a book page, and presenting them in a table format, Year 3 classes revised their “collecting and inserting data into a chart” lesson while Year 6 students problem-solved by figuring out how many bowls of soup Charlie Bucket ate in a month or how many Oompah Loompas Willy Wonka had employed!

The traditional pyjama day concluded the weeklong events and offered a relaxed atmosphere for children to enjoy the many movies adapted from Roald Dahl’s stories.