Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 1 Book introduction

First
Give the children a piece of A4 paper overleaf.
Ask the children to draw pictures of all the professions listed below.
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x

Soldier
Ballet dancer
Police officer
Nursery teacher
Pilot
Secretary
Nurse
Doctor

Stress that they dont have to be good drawings, just a picture of a

person doing a particular job.
Next ...
Each child cuts up their eight squares.
One group collects all the soldiers, one the ballet dancers and so on.
Allow each group time to look at their drawings and report back to the
class on the different genders represented in their group.

Consider the following questions:

Why do you think your group shows this?
Is this the way genders are represented in the wider world?
How do books and television programmes reinforce these stereotypes?

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Draw your
Soldier

Ballet dancer

Police officer

Pilot

Nursery teacher

Doctor

Secretary

Nurse

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 2
Look at the words below and decide whether you think they relate to
girls, boys or both. Get ready to justify why you have chosen to put them
in different places!

Girls

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Boys

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Both

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 3 Diary writing

Bill has a very adventurous day when he goes to school
wearing a pretty pink dress with fiddly shell buttons.
You are going to write his diary all about his exciting day. You wont be
able to write about all the things that happen to him during the day, so
think of maybe three events to write about in the diary.
In a diary it is important to record how someone feels. Bill feels different
things during the day: bewildered, angry, upset, frustrated, happy. To
help you think about feelings, complete these thought bubbles before you
write the diary.
When he sees
Mean Malcolm

When the children

are painting him

When he has to
win the race

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Dear Diary
It has been such a strange day. It all began when

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 4 Read Chapter One

In pairs, discuss these points and make some notes.
What are the ways Bill
notices girls are treated
differently to boys?

Do you think people in

real life treat boys and
girls differently?

Why are the teachers in

the book kinder to the
girls?

Why did Bills mum

put him in a dress?

Do other traditional
tales (like Rapunzel)
reinforce this way of
behaving for girls and
boys?

What do you think

will happen to Bill
as the day goes on?

Has anything
happened so far that
you think is unfair?

How would you react

if a boy came to
school in a dress?

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 5 Gills New Trousers

What would happen if a girl became a boy for the day?
How would they be treated differently?
What would they find unusual?
You are going to write a story where this happens.
You need to think about your ideas in the story.
Think about what happens in a normal school day. Will you include
playtime? What games will Gill have to play that she doesnt normally?
Will the head teacher and teacher treat her in a different way? Will she
get into trouble more?

First of all think about how your story will begin and how it will
end. Use ideas from Bills New Frock to help.
Gill woke up one morning to find she was wearing a pair of boys blue
trousers!
Continue

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 6 Write a play script

You are going to write part of the story in the style of a play
script. It will be the scene where the children are in the classroom
for wet lunchtime and Bill gets into an argument over the comics.
This is the sequence of events that happened:
1. Mrs Collins handed around comics
2. Bill wanted a Thunder or a Hornet but was given a Bunty
3. He tried to swap with Melissa who had a Beano
4. He tried to swap with Rohan who had a Valiant
5. He tried to swap with Martin who had a Victor
6. He started reading the Bunty but Flora swapped for the Dandy
7. Rohan wanted the Dandy and they got into a fight

Continue the playscript:

Scene The classroom Wet lunchtime

Mrs Collins is handing out comics.

Mrs Collins:

(sighing) No talking now, I want quiet reading

Bill:

But Mrs Coll

Mrs Collins:

(shouting) I SAID QUIET

Bill:

I didnt want this Bunty

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Continue the play script:

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 7 Inside and outside character description

Pupils can work in groups.
They will need a large sheet of paper and felt tip pens.

How does Bill look on the outside and how does he

feel on the inside during his strange day at school?
Firstly they have to draw an outline of Bill and add labels to describe his
appearance. They need to make these as detailed as possible.
Some examples are shown below:
Grubby finger marks around the hem from fiddling in assembly
A large muddy stain from football
Rich rosy freckles
Next pupils need to draw on different thought bubbles around the outside.
They need to consider what Bill thought at different points in the day and
write these thoughts using first person. Some ideas could be:
Why are all the staff giving me things to
carry? Cant they see I dont have any
pockets? It is so confusing how everyone is
behaving today

That was strange, the headmaster was so kind to

me then. Thats never happened before when Ive
been late.

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Bills New Frock by Anne Fine

Activity 8 Reflection activity

Are boys and girls really that different?
Make notes in the table below on what you think boys and girls enjoy
doing.
Girls

Boys

Sport

Playtime

TV

Toys

Hobbies

Talk to others in the class to see whether they agree or disagree with
your ideas.
If there are any differences between boys and girls, why do you think
this is?
Do you think it has always been this way?
Is there any way in which you feel boys or girls are treated unfairly?
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