Trent College: Harry Potter Night 2024
An evening for all wizards, witches and muggles from local state primary schools to join us for a mystical Harry Potter Night. There was lots of wizarding fun and magical mischief, as the children heard readings from JK Rowling’s books, made their own wizarding wands and luminous lanterns, attempted supreme victory in Devonshire Library quidditch, and sampled sweet treats in our very own Honeydukes.
Aims
The aim of the workshop was to offer an opportunity for visiting primary school children to promote their literacy skills and interest in a fun and competitive environment.
The evening was designed to appeal to those with a genuine enthusiasm for Harry Potter, and to further promote reading and deepen a passion for literature, and the use of libraries.
For the event to be a success, we needed Year 5&6 pupils to attend from primary schools in our local community.
Pupils and staff from 4 visiting state schools benefited from the evening.
Background
Trent College has an extensive and well-established primary school event programme, co-ordinated by our External School Liaison Manager.
This Harry Potter Night has been run for a number of years, aimed at our own Year 7&8 pupils. Our head of Library Services suggested that it would be a good event to run for external pupils, as it is always lots of fun and a great way to promote reading and libraries in general.
This is the second year that we have run it for primary schools in our local community.
Resources
For the evening to be successful, we need access to our beautiful Devonshire Library, which is almost taken from Hogwarts itself. It sets the scene beautifully and creates a sense of awe and wonder.
We required at least 4 members of staff - teaching and non-teaching - 2 to organise and run the event and 2 to assist with readings and activities.
Our External School Liaison Manager invited the pupils and liaised with the schools for arrival and departure times, photo consent and dietary needs.
Our Head of Library Services bought and prepared all the practical resources for the activities, and liaised with our internal staff to support and set up the event.
Our D&T department helped with erection of the Quidditch game. Our Economics teacher brought and placed all the lights. Our catering department provided the butter beer and themed cupcakes. We had two Year 10 students to assist on the evening with the separate activities.
The event was all free of charge and ran for 2 hours, with approximately 1 day of preparation time.
Impact
It was great fun and tensions were high at the end when the schools went head-to-head to become champions in the ultimate Harry Potter quiz.
The pupils all said they had a brilliant time and didn't want to leave.
The teachers left saying to book them in for next year and it had been really great.
"It was a delightful evening. The library was very atmospheric and we all enjoyed the wonderful themed activities - especially quidditch." Year 6 teacher - J Read (Dovedale Primary School)
Pupil Involvement
We had 20 Year 5&6 pupils visit from 4 different local state primary schools, with 8 members of staff. A mix of boys and girls - all 10 or 11 years old.
Frequency
The Harry Potter Night runs annually.
