Southway school brings books to life with lighthearted YouTube videos

The videos, which are presented as a series of news reports, saw staff dressing up and acting out a unique story line in an effort to to get little ones excited about reading.

When a magic potion spills over in the Southway school library, characters like Where’s Wally, the Three Little Pigs and Cruella de Vil to emerge from their respective books and come to life. After one of them steals the school’s much-loved House Cup, Southways’s local news team must scramble to apprehend the villain responsible. What follows is a joyous whodunnit filled with twists, turns and plenty of literary laughs.

The a series was planned as part of the school’s World Book Day celebrations and, alongside the three videos, staff introduced a number of writing tasks. Pupils got the chance to experiment with persuasive, creative and informational writing in a variety of contexts informed by the videos.

Teachers said they wanted to get students excited about reading, to develop all the skills they need to analyse a good story.

Catherine Monk, vice principal at Southway, said: “We wanted children to be fired up by books, to be inspired to read more and motivated to find the joy of ‘getting lost’ in a book.”

In that regard, the videos were a roaring success. Ms Monk says the dastardly theft of the House Cup has been the talk of the playground all week.

She said:“It completely grabbed the attention of all our children and parents. Pupils came in each day sure that they had seen Wally at the Premier store, while others were convinced they had found Cruella’s hair and parts of the old lady’s walking stick on the playground!”

Mike Wood, head teacher of Southway School, said “It was a brilliant week. Parents and kids were talking about it and there were lots of lovely learning opportunities.”

To watch the videos, subscribe to Southway Primary School’s YouTube channel.