Miss O’Neill, checking in! It’s Day 2 of working from home. The library is now a lot smaller than it used to be, physically, based as it is at my kitchen table (close to the food and coffee). But that doesn’t mean that you won’t have access to lots of resources and support while the main school library and your local community libraries are closed. Continue reading
Access a range of free eBooks, eAudiobooks, and eMagazines from Glasgow Libraries by downloading the Libby Overdrive, Borrow Box, and RB Digital apps from your app store onto your personal mobile, tablet, or PC device.
You will need either your school library card or Glasgow Libraries card number and four-digit pin number to access the service. If you don’t have one or if you have lost your card, contact Ms DeLeavey on Glow.
Follow the links to access Libby Overdrive, Borrow Box and RB Digital as well as user guides to help you access each service.
Use your library card number to access Research and Reference materials that might be useful for your homework:
Access to Research: academic papers from leading publishers. Subjects include art, architecture, business, engineering, history, languages, politics, philosophy, mathematics and the sciences.
ProQuest: contains trade, government/official publications, reports, magazine articles as well as academic journals and reports to facilitate your research. Subjects include business, health and medical, social sciences & humanities, education, science and technology.
GALE Literature Resource Centre: a comprehensive online resource for research on literary topics, authors and their works. Content includes; literary criticism, biographies, topic and work overviews, primary sources, interviews and reviews.
On Monday 3 March, Notre Dame High School welcomed Muhammad Khan, author of I Am Thunder and Kick the Moon. This was organised as part of Glasgow’s Wee Write! Festival.
He talked to our S3 girls about his books and writing process, and also about Islamophobia and toxic masculinity. This event really resonated with our students and I know it was enriching for me personally.
Hello Everybody!
For this month post, we thought to share we you a new project that took place this year: Coderdojo.
We are approaching the end of it, so we think this is a good time to tell you a bit more…
It’s hard to set a specific time when the idea came up, but it was definitely possible thanks to different personalities that work for Glasgow Life, and in particular to Claire, the STEM coordinator.
It took a team effort to identify the right library, the right time and the right pupils for the project, but with the help and support of different librarians across the city, we made it!
The young people were trained for six weeks both by Claire and two youth workers, Joni and Alan. We learnt how to communicate effectively to younger children, how to give instructions, but more importantly we learnt how to be a team.
January marked the “action” time, that meant we could to go to Knightswood community library and finally meet our younger coderdojoers and develop with them their coding skills.
It has been impressively good to see how well the young people responded to the project and interacted between each other.
Last, but not least our mentors: three seniors who worked together to build the perfect team. Their abilities and expertise got perfectly mix and the result is we all have had great time together.
This is what one of our mentors says:
“Coderdojo is not only a good way to teach kids about coding and how to use code, but it is also an enjoyable experience for the young people involved in which they can develop a fun and interesting life skill”.
The results achieved made us confident that this will be just the pilot for a bigger project across the city!
Springburn Academy Library recently hosted an event in partnership with Skills Development Scotland which provided information for EAL pupils, parents and guardians on their post school options. The EAL department at Springburn has identified that pupils from overseas, including asylum seekers and refugees, do not have the same access to opportunities as everyone else, often due to legal and financial constraints.
Much of the information and advice given to them needs to be tailored to their circumstances.
There were several speakers, including the school’s EAL Teacher, Graham Park, who opened the event, and Stephen Coyle, Careers Coach, who explained the SDS service offer to pupils. Graham Thomson from Glasgow Kelvin College, covered the various learning pathways offered by the Further Education sector, and his colleague Norma Stewart, described the ESOL programmes and the application process. Shukrya Addow of SDS delivered a presentation on the benefits of undertaking Foundation, Graduate and Modern Apprenticeships. She was followed by Paula Blair from the University of Glasgow, who discussed the university application process and widening access to Higher Education. Ian Maclellan of the University of Strathclyde, discussed their Asylum Seeker Scholarship Fund, and Angeline Mwafulirwa spoke about how she benefited from the Fund and her subsequent career path. The final speaker was Alan Reekie of SDS, who touched on funding issues and the eligibility criteria for learning opportunities for asylum seekers, refugees, EU citizens and international students.
Interpreters supported the event and the languages covered included Arabic, Portuguese, Mandarin and Urdu.
Today was a very special day at St Thomas Aquinas Secondary. We were lucky to have author Damien Love in to talk to us about his new book as part of Glasgow’s Wee Write! Festival. We took the opportunity to have a transitions event, and invited all of our feeder primary schools to attend. Nearly 190 P7s and around 20 of our S1s packed the social area!
Damien talked most about his debut novel, Monstrous Devices:
On a winter’s day in a British town, twelve-year-old Alex receives a package in the mail: an old tin robot from his grandfather. “This one is special,” says the enclosed note, and when strange events start occurring around him, Alex suspects this small toy is more than special; it might be deadly.
Right as things get out of hand, Alex’s grandfather arrives, pulling him away from an attack–and his otherwise humdrum world of friends, bullies, and homework–and into the macabre magic of an ancient family feud. Together, the duo flees across snowy Europe, unravelling the riddle of the little robot while trying to outwit relentless assassins of the human and mechanical kind. (From Goodreads)
Our S1s were absolutely captivated and I hope it was an enriching experience for the P7s as well.
Arrived just in time for World Book Day! The first batch of reviews from the Rosshall Academy Library Group, now on display in the Library and in the English corridor.
More to come, so watch this space!
February has seen a little ‘re-jigging’ of the library lay-out. We have moved our Shelf Help section to the front of the library, making it easier to spot and more accessible for young people and hopefully encourage them to reach out to our excellent selection of literature dealing with mental health issues and exam stress.
In its old spot, we have set up a ‘Gaming and Coding Corner’ which includes game guides, computer game-inspired fiction and various books on coding and programming. Not only will this provide a clear resource for those interested, it also gives yours truly a chance to discover more about what makes our young people tick with regards to games and coding. For this section, I got some of our lunchtime crew to pick out images of their favourite computer games characters to go on the wall.
This month also marks LGBT+ History month and we have set up a small display at the front of the library to mark this, complete with both fiction and non-fiction material covering LGBT themes. Its important that young people from all walks of life feel welcome in the library and that the diversity within the school is reflected as much as possible in the libraries’ resources.
March will most likely see a weekly, or bi-weekly, update as there will be a lot to cover! Next week we will be welcoming Neil Slorance and John Wagner to the library as part of the Wee Write! Festival as well as World Book Day on the 5th. Furthermore, Amnesty International’s Words That Burn poetry project will be kicking off in St. Andrew’s from the 11th!
Participatory Spend Books: Throughout October, the Library worked with six S3+4 classes to collect pupil book suggestions that would be used to inform purchasing new stock. This year the Library is prioritising books for reluctant, struggling, and learning readers. This means resourcing titles that will appeal to a broad readership and tastes. The Librarian narrowed the choice of books between two publishers: Barrington Stoke and Badger Learning. Classes were instructed to select the books that they found interesting from both websites. The suggestions were then collated and checked against the Library’s catalogue to ensure books already stocked in the Library were not purchased and therefore making the best use of the allocated budget. The Librarian then bought the most popular books from our supplier.
The books are now available in the Library and a display will be set up for World Book Day in March.
Click Barrington Stoke and Badger Learning Participatory Spend Titles Book List for more information about the books.
Book Group: The Library launched a book group for S2+ pupils who are developing their English skills. We meet weekly in the English Base and read one or two chapters of the book. The title we are reading is Eagle Warrior by Gill Lewis. Set in the Scottish Highlands, this story follows a young girl and her grandmother who are determined to solve the mystery of an illegal poaching trade taking place in the area. Eagle Warrior was chosen because it introduces the pupils to Scottish landscape, language, and wildlife as well as prompting discussion of topics ranging from Scottish law, cuisine, and history.
More about Eagle Warrior: “Bobbie is thrilled that a golden eagle has settled near her family farm. She loves climbing the hills to watch it soar across the sky and stalk its prey. But not everybody shares her feelings for the magnificent bird. When it becomes clear that the eagle is in grave danger, Bobbie is determined to do everything she can to protect it. But she is also facing the threat of being sent away to boarding school, far from everything she knows. Will Bobbie be brave enough to fight for the bird and home that she loves?”
