Students at Writhlington School embraced the magic and banished the mid-winter blues on Thursday, 5th February by celebrating the nation's first-ever Harry Potter Book Night.
The brainchild of Potter publishers, Bloomsbury
Publishing, the event called for schools, libraries, bookshops and youth clubs up and down the country to host an evening of magic and adventure all about the Hogwarts-based stories.
The library at Writhlington School was transformed for the evening, as it welcomed muggles of all ages through the door, ready for their induction into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Many arrived in fantastic fancy dress, with lightning bolts on their foreheads and magic wands at the ready. Events were kicked off with a sorting ceremony, in which the houses of the newly-inducted students were decided by the ceremonial sorting hat.
Once this was complete, students competed in their houses to win house points in a bid to make their
house, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin.
With activities ranging from drawing dramatic
dragons to plotting perfect potions, working out wicked wordplay to quashing quick-fire questions, there really was something for everyone!
Each house showed the qualities for which they are renowned with their teamwork, creativity and competitive spirit and they all quickly collected house points with their designs, ideas and answers. With a final dash to the top via a great big house quiz, the highly-contested battle for first place was finally awarded to Slytherin!
Librarian, Victoria King, said: "It was an absolute
pleasure to host the first-ever Harry Potter Book Night in our library. It was a wonderful opportunity for past and present fans of the stories to share their love of the books and relive their favourite moments. It was equally fantastic to see future fans be so inspired and keen to read them all! JK Rowling's novels are always among our most popularly borrowed books, but I predict even more copies will be flying off the shelves now! Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for the superb
resources and well done to all the students who were
involved, you all did your houses proud!"