A UK-wide celebration of poetry, taking place on the 2 October 2025. This year’s theme is Play.
Visit the National Poetry Day website to find links to poems, lost and found words, films and teaching resources-as well as archives of past National Poetry Days.
In 2019–20, Falkirk Council piloted the Reading Schools accreditation programme as part of a FVWL RIC initiative. Evaluation showed clear evidence of impact on learners, learning professionals and schools as a whole:
Based on this positive evidence of impact, the programme has been extended to all of Scotland’s schools.
Research proves that reading for pleasure has positive impacts on learners’ attainment across the curriculum, supporting wellbeing, critical thinking, creativity, empathy and resilience.
Visit the website to find how to apply for accreditation and to find a range of very helpful advice and examples from schools who have gone through the accreditation process.
NEWS!
40 of our schools in Falkirk Council are engaged with the Reading Schools’ Accreditation programme and so far in 2025 Carrongrange High School, Comely Park Primary School and St Mary’s Primary School achieved Silver Accreditation, and Larbert High School, St Francis’ Primary School and St Joseph’s primary school achieved Gold Accreditation. Well done to all!
Apply now for Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature programme, a wonderful opportunity to invite an author to your school for £75 instead of £175. Scottish Book Trust will pay the rest of the fees and travel costs.
The current application window covers Live Literature events taking place before 31 March 2023. There will be a series of rolling deadlines throughout the year, up until the final deadline of 21 November 2022. Deadlines for each panel are listed below.
All applications should be received no later than midday on each deadline date.
Previous winners and shortlists:
RED 19 (2024-2025): This Book Kills by Ravena Guron
Nominated:
RED 18 (2023-2024): War of the Wind by Victoria Williamson
Nominated:
RED 17 (2022-2023): Last One to Die by Cynthia Murphy
Nominated:
RED 16 (2021-2022): A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
Nominated:
RED 15 (2020-2021 award): Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin
Nominated:
RED 14 (2019-2020 award): The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James
Nominated:
RED 13 (2018-2019 award): Sunflowers in February by Phyllida Shrimpton
Nominated:
RED 12 (2017-2018 award): Welcome to Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird
Nominated:
RED 11 (2016-2017 award): 13 Hours by Narinder Dhami
Nominated:
RED 10 (2015-2016 award): Mind Blind by Lari Don
Nominated:
RED 9 (2014-2015 award): Raining Fire by Alan Gibbons
Nominated:
RED 8 (2013-2014 award): Slated by Teri Terry
Nominated:
RED 7 (2012-2013 award): An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons
Nominated:
RED 6 (2011-12 award): Wasted by Nicola Morgan
Nominated:
RED 5 (2010-11 award): Grass by Cathy MacPhail
Nominated:
RED 4 (2009-10 award): Divided City by Theresa Breslin
Nominated:
RED 3 (2008-09 award): Worse Than Boys by Cathy MacPhail
Nominated:
RED 2 (2007-08 award): Blood Ties by Sophie McKenzie
Nominated:
RED 1 (2006-07 award): Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy
Nominated:
Our teacher book group is continuing to read, discuss and review a range of new books for children and we want to share this as widely as possible. Here we review ‘When the sky falls’ by Phil Earle and ‘The small things’ by Lisa Thompson
The RED Book Award celebrates its 15th anniversary and to mark this achievement, the wonderful shortlist focuses on a BAME theme:
Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman
A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby
Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin
My Name’s Not Friday by Jon Walters
The authors joined the young people in each Falkirk Council secondary school at the digital Award Ceremony on Wednesday 19th May 2021. Due to the restrictions of Covid the award ceremony could not be face to face however despite this, the Award Ceremony was very enjoyable and featured creative interpretations of each of the shortlisted books by the young people and a very interesting Q & A session with the authors before the winning book was revealed.
The ceremony was attended by all the shortlisted authors and the S2 RED classes from 6 of our secondary schools. The authors gave us interesting and insightful guidance on writing, there was dancing and there were prizes awarded for best alternative ending and front cover designs of the shortlisted books.
Congratulations to all the authors for reaching the RED shortlist.
AND THE W
INNER IS…
Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin.
The Learning Resource Service promoted The Book of Hopes when it was published last year, it is a wonderful book to comfort and inspire children. Edited by the well known and loved author Katherine Rundell, it contains contributions from more than 100 writers and illustrators, including Lauren Child, Anthony Horowitz, Greg James and Chris Smith, Michael Morpurgo, Liz Pichon, Axel Scheffler, Francesca Simon and Jacqueline Wilson. The publisher, Bloomsbury, have kindly made the on-line book available free during this lockdown.
There are some brilliant activities and ideas that have been produced based on the Book of Hopes as well as a challenge to spread hope, inspiration and a love of reading in your school and local community with a chance to win prizes!
The theme of this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week is Express Yourself.
Expressing yourself is about finding ways to share feelings, thoughts, or ideas, through creativity, through art, music, writing and poetry, dance and drama, photography and film.
Free resources for children and young people are available to explore what it means to Express Yourself and can be easily adapted for use in school, for home-schooling, online lessons or independent learning.
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) have announced a free School Talks programme where a number of their Fellows will be delivering free online talks to schools throughout Scotland.
All talks are presented by inspirational experts, keen to enthuse and excite young people in P6 – S6 covering Sciences; Technologies; Social Studies; Health and Wellbeing; Expressive Arts; Mathematics; and Languages. They look AMAZING! Many of the speakers are also willing to work with teachers to tailor their talks to fit with class curriculums.
For more information about the talks and how to book please visit https://www.rse.org.uk/schools/school-talks/
The RED Book Award, now in its 14th year, was in danger of not going ahead because of the coronavirus, however it was decided to organise the ceremony on-line. Over 70 teachers and pupils gathered on Microsoft Teams on 27/5/2020 to join the 4 wonderful shortlisted authors:
Lauren James who wrote The Quiet at the End of the World
Matt Killeen who wrote Orphan Monster Spy
Gill Lewis who wrote The Closest Thing to Flying
Fiona Shaw who wrote Outwalkers
The Q & A session was excellent with the authors answering brilliant questions from the pupils. The ceremony was interrupted with some occasional ‘hand dancing’ by the librarians, teachers, guests and authors! The young people had written alternative endings to the shortlisted books and the overall winner, from Larbert HS, had written another ending to The Closest Thing to Flying, the author, Gill Lewis, said she was “blown away” by the writing.
And then it was time to open the red envelope to reveal the winning book:
The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James who was delighted and said it was her first regional book award win!
Congratulations Lauren.
