Portsmouth FC footballer Owen Dale surprises children at Purbrook Infant School for World Book Day

Purbrook Infant School has been celebrating World Book Day this week and to keep the children engaged with their reading, the school organised to have a mystery reader come in.

For the past few days, the children have been given hints about who the visitor might be and today (Wednesday, March 2) they found out that Pompey’s Owen Dale was going to be reading to them.

Owen, who has recently had a little boy, bought one of his son’s books in to read to reception, year 1 and year 2 children, and the headteacher, Lisa deCarteret, said it was brilliant.

She said: ‘Every year we celebrate World Book Day and this year we had everybody dressing as their favourite book characters, so they brought in their favourite book from home.

‘This year to make it more exciting we introduced the idea of bringing in a mystery reader. We have done a lot of work over the years to get them involved in reading.

‘He was brilliant, he was confident. It can be quite scary coming in and reading to 230 children, but they were all engaged and it did what we wanted.’

The idea was organised by teacher Becka Wigmore, who is the reading lead at the school, and the team were all impressed with the positive impact it had on the children.

SEE ALSO: World Book Day: Portsmouth Grammar School has taken part - see if you can spot your child

The head teacher said that a lot of the students guessed that it was going to be a footballer, so they wore their football kits and were extremely excited when they found out who it was.

She added: ‘We really push for reading at our school. We open our library up before and after school for the children and parents.

‘For all children reading is so important, you have got that aspect that you get to learn and it also gives them an escape.

‘It can bring that spark back. Reading at home is great, because we want our children to not only read at school.’

The head teacher said that she will look to do something again and they want to do something a bit different each year for World Book Day.

ALSO READ: World Book Day: Portsmouth's rich literary history, from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens to Neil Gaiman