All posts by Mrs WILSON

School Librarian Northfield Academy

Grampian Children’s Book Award 2016 – Shortlist Announced

The shortlist for the Grampian Children’s Book Awards 2016 has just been announced.

Reading Cafe runs Tuesday Lunchtimes in the Library. Come along to take part in the 2016 awards.

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Ainsworth, Eve 7 days
School should be a safe place for Jess, but at the moment it’s everything she dreads. Jess’s life is difficult enough without Kez picking on her. Kez’s life isn’t any sweeter. She has plenty of problems too but she finds comfort in knowing she is better off than Jess – or so she thinks… Told from the point of view of the bullied and the bully, this is a taut, powerful story of two girls locked in battle with each other and themselves, spiralling towards a shocking conclusion.

 

Bergin, Virginia The rain
One minute sixteen-year-old Ruby Morris is having her first proper snog with Caspar McCloud in a hot tub, and the next she’s being bundled inside the house, dripping wet, cold and in her underwear. Not cool. As she and Caspar shiver in the kitchen, it starts to rain. They turn on the radio to hear panicked voices – ‘It’s in the rain . . . it’s in the rain . . . ‘ That was two weeks ago, and now Ruby is totally alone. People weren’t prepared for the rain, got caught out in it, didn’t realize that you couldn’t drink water from the taps either. Even a drip of rain would infect your blood, and eat you from the inside out. Ruby knows she has to get to London to find her dad, but she just doesn’t know where to start.

 

Dawson, James Under my skin

Meet Molly Sue. Once she’s under your skin there’s no getting rid of her…Seventeen-year-old Sally Feathers is not exactly a rebel. Her super-conservative parents and her treatment at the hands of high school bullies means that Sally’s about as shy and retiring as they come – but all that’s about to change. Accidentally ending up in the seedier side of town one day, Sally finds herself mysteriously lured to an almost-hidden tattoo parlour. Sally selects sexy pin-up Molly Sue, and has her tattooed on her back – hoping that Molly Sue will inspire her to be as confident and popular as she is in her dreams. But things quickly take a nightmareish turn.

 

Haig, Matt Echo Boy
Audrey’s father taught her that to stay human in the modern world, she had to build a moat around herself; a moat of books and music, philosophy and dreams. A moat that makes Audrey different from the echoes: sophisticated, emotionless machines, built to resemble humans and to work for human masters. Daniel is an echo – but he’s not like the others. He feels a connection with Audrey; a feeling Daniel knows he was never designed to have, and cannot explain. And when Audrey is placed in terrible danger, he’s determined to save her.

 

MacPhail, Cathy Devil you know
Forced to move away from his dad in Aberdeen to a run-down Glasgow council estate, Logan thinks he’s pretty lucky to have made any friends — let alone Baz and the boys. Baz might have a bit of reputation, be a bit mouthy, but he’s the kind of friend who’ll stick up for you; who’ll make life interesting — or should that be dangerous? When Logan, Baz and the boys get caught up a local turf war Baz is the first to fight back. But the aftermath leads Logan and his friends deeper into a world of real-life gangs, threats and lethal revenge. How far will Baz go, and will Logan follow him?

 

Slater, Kim Smart
There’s been a murder, but the police don’t care. It was only a homeless old man after all. Kieran cares. He’s made a promise, and when you say something out loud, that means you’re going to do it, for real. He’s going to find out what really happened. To Colin. And to his grandma, who just stopped coming round one day. It’s a good job Kieran’s a master of observation, and knows all the detective tricks of the trade. But being a detective is difficult when you’re Kieran Woods. When you’re amazing at drawing but terrible at fitting in. And when there are dangerous secrets everywhere, not just outside, but under your own roof.

 

For more information –

http://gcbookaward.wix.com/gcba

https://twitter.com/GrampBookAward

Metaphrog and the “Red Shoes” Sept 2015

Northfield Academy are delighted to have our Patrons of Reading Metaphrog back in school running workshops to S1 pupils.  We are so pleased they could take time out of their busy schedule to visit us – particularly as they are currently writers in residence for the Edinburgh Book Festival.

Metaphrog have built a reputation for inspiring and encouraging young people through their distinctive graphic novel work and their visits this week have proved no different.  Pupils have enjoyed workshop sessions looking at graphic novels – particularly those that originated as fairy tales before getting time to create their own characters.  On Tuesday staff and senior pupils enjoyed a lunchtime session with metaphrog which was well received.

Pupils and staff were lucky to hear all about Metaphrog’s much anticipated new book “Red Shoes and other Tales” which includes modern day interpretations of two of Hans Christian Anderson’s classic tales. This will be published in the UK in November.

Metaphrog will be back with us in November to visit several more S1 classes before a special Northfield Academy book launch of “Red Shoes”.

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From the Archives – Hill Walking Club 1966

Hill Walking Club climbed Ben Nevis in 1966.

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Writing in the Northfield Secondary School Magazine at the time, Dennis Christie 3S and Alan harrow IVS recalled:

“We travelled to Inverness, then down past the lochs to Fort William, then two miles on to Glen Nevis Hostel where we were to stay the two nights.

On Saturday morning we got ready to start our ascent. The climb was very steep at the start until we reached the path at 1000ft.  Although strewn with boulders, it was a lot easier.  We stopped for lunch at 2000ft and then started climbing the most difficult part.  The snow was now very deep and we were becoming very tired.  However, we struggled on to the top and the joy at our success overcame our fatigue.

We came down at considerable pace, and after falling in the snow many times reached the bottom where we took off all our wet clothes and had a meal before returning to Fort William for the night. ”

 

Love Lego? LEGO Club

Love Lego?  Design amazing creations and show off your creative side. Create Lego storyboards and short films.  Lego club will run in the Library on Tuesday Lunchtimes.

Places are limited however the club will run in 6 week blocks to allow a mix of pupils to take part. Sign up to the club in the Library.

lego poster photo file

Grampian Children’s Book Awards

Top marks to Jordyn and Jordan in Mrs Mackintosh’s S2 English class for winning first place in the book trailer competition at the Grampian Children’s Book Award.  They created a book trailer for shortlisted book Say my Name by James Dawson.

 

The Grampian Children’s Book Award is judged by S1 – S3 pupils in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray. A lively awards ceremony led by award winning Cathy MacPhail and a panel of 3 of the shortlisted authors (James Dawson, Dave Cousins and Kevin Brooks) kept school pupils from across the region enthralled and entertained at the event at Aberdeen University.  Author James Dawson was pronounced 2015 winner to great applause.

 

From the Northfield Academy Archives

 

 

From the school archives…. 1979

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Northfield Academy celebrated winning the Under 13s football league cup in 1979. Aberdeen Football Club manager Alex Ferguson  presented the League Trophy to team captains David Morland and Stuart Manson at a special school assembly with coach Ken McKenzie looking on.

British Science Week

British Science Week 2015 takes place 13 – 22 March.

Science on the Spot

As part of British Science Week, there will be a Science on the Spot session in the Library on Wednesday 18th March from 12.45pm – 1.35pm. Pupils and staff are invited to come along and try their hand at some quick, but impressive Science tricks.

 

Competition in School

To celebrate British Science week the Science faculty are running a competition. Pupils are asked to identify general lab equipment from anagrams and close up pictures. A winner will be selected from the correct entries and awarded a mystery prize! Each entry gains a participation house point.

Copies of the competition have been given to each tutor teacher. Additional copies are available from the library. Entries should be handed in to the library by the end of Friday 20th March. A winner will be announced on Monday 23rd March.

 

Solar Eclipse

On Friday the 20th March there is a Solar Eclipse, Aberdeen has been voted one of the best places to see it from with up to 98% of the sun being covered. The eclipse will begin just after 8.30am with the peak occurring around 9.40am and the eclipse finishing around 10.45am. For safe ways to view the solar eclipse please see the following website  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131102-solar-eclipse-safe-viewing-science-sun-space/

The eclipse will also be lived streamed via the following http://live.slooh.com/

 

Events around AberdeenThere are a number of events taking place across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/engage/content-images/BritishScienceWeek2015webs.pdf

 

Scottish Author Allan Burnett talk on “Invented in Scotland”

S1 pupils on Friday were treated to an informative presentation by Scottish author Allan Burnett.

 
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Allan gave an enthusiastic presentation on “Invented in Scotland” with numerous links to Scottish Scientists.  He did a fantastic job of combining the history and the connection with where we are now, e.g James Watt, steam and turbines and Napier, logarithms and computing.  He had lots of new facts too including informing us that the humble digestive is a Scottish invention!

Allan’s visit coincided with a week of activities for S1 pupils as part of a wider cross curricular project on Great Scottish Scientists.

Visit by our Patrons of Reading Metaphrog

This week we have been delighted to again welcome our Patrons of Reading Metaphrog back to Northfield Academy to work with S1 pupils in a series of graphic novel workshops.

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Pupils enjoyed working with metaphrog over several periods and were encouraged in their work to create their own comic strip of a famous Scottish scientist.

These workshops are part of a wider cross curricular school project to research, plan and draw a short comic strip about a famous Scottish Scientist. These will be showcased  soon on the TV screens in school. Several comics will be photographed frame by frame and music composed to create short films.

As part of the project a number of S1 classes will also attend an author talk by Allan Burnett – who has recently written “Invented in Scotland”.

Metaphrog also worked with Primary 7 pupils from Quarryhill Primary on an introductory workshop on graphic novels.