Spoons spare parents World Book Day costume drama

For World Book Day, one Suffolk school has done away with getting the children to dress up as their favourite characters and instead asked them to decorate wooden spoons.

Bardwell Church of England Primary School near Bury St Edmunds launched the idea for the first time this year.

Headteacher Kelly Frost said she had done something similar in previous schools and wanted to offer families an inclusive and easier way to celebrate the day.

"We wanted to move away from the traditional dressing up because what we often find is that children don't come in a book character, it's a lot of effort to create a costume that represents characters from a book," she explained.

"There can also be financial implications for some families, so we wanted to do something that was really accessible to every child in the school and we wanted it to be about a book.

"We often find that with dressing up, it can be like a princess outfit or a superhero, but we wanted them to engage with the books they actually read in classes and at home."

All the pupils were given spoons to decorate as their favourite characters, which Frost said had been a "really popular" idea with both children and parents alike.

"We've had loads of spoons come in, I think pretty much every child in the school has decorated a spoon and brought it in," she continued.

"Also I think not every child likes dressing up, so there's a lot of things to consider when you ask children to come in dressed up as a character.

"It's not for everyone, but this can be. So this is really inclusive, it's for everybody in the school."

The headteacher said a "massive variety" of spoons had been seen including the BFG, Harry Potter and some robots.

"It's just lovely to see the children having a day that's all about reading," she added. "It's really exciting."

Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.