Omima, Anete, Mason, Nerea, Elise and Rabia from S1 and Mohammed, Emmanuel, Gina, Ciaran and Wilbur from S2 were nominated by their English teachers and the school librarian for the Reader of the Year award. All pupils received books and stickers wrapped and decorated by S6 Literacy Prefects Abby and Carragh who also announced the winners. Congratulations to all avid readers!
Me and Mr Brown organised Heartstopper club to celebrate the extremely popular graphic novel series and TV Show. We watched and discussed all episodes of the first season and pupils decorated the library with colouring sheets. We can’t wait for season 2 and will be reading all other Alice Oseman’s books in the meantime!
Pop-Up Library
The Pop-Up Library stall is back in lieu of the library space being used throughout the exam period. Here, pupils can browse handpicked goodies selected by the Librarian, request specific titles, or return their books.
May/June Booklists
June 22 Booklists – Book Trust
Best new Children’s Books – Toppsta
Bookbug’s Books of the Month – Scottish Book Trust
Books of the Month – Love Reading 4 Kids
Book of the Month – Scholastic
Books of the Month – Waterstones
Children’s Book Roundup – Guardian
Trending Books – Epic Reads
Upcoming Events (June)
May 26th – Jun 5th: Hay Festival (Hay-on-Wye, Wales)
2nd – 4th: Riverside Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
2nd – 12th: Glasgow Science Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
3rd-5th: Cymera Book Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland & Online)
4th: Glasgow Comic Con (Glasgow, Scotland)
4th: Vinicombe Street Gala (Glasgow, Scotland)
11th: Laugh in the Park Comedy Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
11th: Mansfield Park Street Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
16th – 19th: Borders Book Festival (Melrose, Scotland)
17th – 19th: Solas Arts Festival (Perthshire, Scotland)
16th – 19th: Glasgow Jazz Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
17th – 19th: Dandelion Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
17th – 26th: Refugee Festival Scotland (Across Scotland)
18th: Kelvingrove Outdoor Ceilidh (Glasgow, Scotland)
18th – 19th: Yardworks Street Art & Graffiti Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
26th: Glasgow Mela (Glasgow, Scotland)
29th – Jul 3rd: East Neuk Festival (Fife, Scotland)
Literary Awards & Prizes
Winners
CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards
Shortlists
The Royal Society Young People’s Prize
Literature & Culture news
Interesting articles
Burn-Proof Edition of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Up for Auction – Huffpost
David Byrne’s New Illustrated Book Playfully Presents A History of the World (in Dingbats font) – Open Culture
High School Activist Given PEN Award for Organising Protests Against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill – Book Riot
The Stories that Shaped Ukraine – BBC
What Your favourite Book genre Says About You – Times of India
Heartstopper Colouring Contest
To celebrate the Netflix debut of Alice Oseman’s bestselling graphic novel, Heartstopper, we held a colouring contesting using one of the official colouring pages. Each submission was put into a prize draw for a chance to win one of three prizes including a Heartstopper bracelet, bookmark, and sticker set. Congratulations to our winners! All pupils who’ve submitted a completed colouring sheet receives a Heartstopper badge.
P7 Transitions
We were delighted to meet pupils from across our feeder primary schools into the library as part of Shawlands Academy transition days. Pupils were given a brief introduction to the library service where they were explained all the different opportunities, reading challenges, competitions and events that takes place throughout the year. Pupils completed a scavenger hunt using a Library map and a set of questions to familiarise themselves with the sections and types of books we have in stock. We also asked them to complete a survey that will inform our stock purchasing for the new school year. Each young person received a pupil designed book mark and an Ask Me What I’m Reading badge.
Pop-Up Library
The Pop-Up Library stall is back in lieu of the library space being used throughout the exam period. Here, pupils can browse handpicked goodies selected by the Librarian, request specific titles, or return their books. Our Pupil Library Committee members will be helping at the stall too, we couldn’t run it without them.
Challenges and Contests
We’ll also continue to promote our range of challenges and contests, including Bookopoly and Ask Me What I’m Reading. Pupils are also encouraged to submit a completed book review to be entered into the monthly School Library prize draw.
May/June Booklists
June 22 Booklists – Book Trust
Best new Children’s Books – Toppsta
Bookbug’s Books of the Month – Scottish Book Trust
Books of the Month – Love Reading 4 Kids
Book of the Month – Scholastic
Books of the Month – Waterstones
Children’s Book Roundup – Guardian
Trending Books – Epic Reads
Upcoming Events (June)
May 26th – Jun 5th: Hay Festival (Hay-on-Wye, Wales)
2nd – 4th: Riverside Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
2nd – 12th: Glasgow Science Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
3rd-5th: Cymera Book Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland & Online)
4th: Glasgow Comic Con (Glasgow, Scotland)
4th: Vinicombe Street Gala (Glasgow, Scotland)
11th: Laugh in the Park Comedy Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
11th: Mansfield Park Street Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
16th – 19th: Borders Book Festival (Melrose, Scotland)
17th – 19th: Solas Arts Festival (Perthshire, Scotland)
16th – 19th: Glasgow Jazz Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
17th – 19th: Dandelion Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
17th – 26th: Refugee Festival Scotland (Across Scotland)
18th: Kelvingrove Outdoor Ceilidh (Glasgow, Scotland)
18th – 19th: Yardworks Street Art & Graffiti Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
26th: Glasgow Mela (Glasgow, Scotland)
29th – Jul 3rd: East Neuk Festival (Fife, Scotland)
Literary Awards & Prizes
Winners
CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards
Shortlists
The Royal Society Young People’s Prize
Literature & Culture news
Interesting articles
Burn-Proof Edition of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Up for Auction – Huffpost
David Byrne’s New Illustrated Book Playfully Presents A History of the World (in Dingbats font) – Open Culture
High School Activist Given PEN Award for Organising Protests Against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill – Book Riot
The Stories that Shaped Ukraine – BBC
What Your favourite Book genre Says About You – Times of India
To celebrate and highlight all the author events that took place in the Library this year, me and Miss Pye created #SmithyReads display in the school hallway.
My favourite thing is definitely the pupils’ feedback! Here are some examples:
“Amazing! Her books are really interesting!” Ben L. (S1) about Maisie Chan
“Listening to them explaining their creative process and their backgrounds – it was amazing.” Amy M. (S1) about Metaphrog
“Really got the group together, made us feel a part of something and transported us into his experiences.” Struan Y. (S3) about Alex Wheatle
“Super unique, it didn’t feel like a lesson.” Daniel S. (S3) about Tawona Sithole
Looking forward to hosting even more author events and workshops in the next school year!
The St Mungo’s library is a part of a Glasgow school libraries project called “Storytelling for mental health”. “The aim is to implement book groups is an innovative way to bring students together from diverse settings. By sharing stories, the young people will have the opportunity to find new ways of expressing their emotional and mental health concerns. This will enable the young people to develop perspective and empathy, as well as the language to discuss emotional and mental health concerns. They will realise that if they are part of a minority group – in terms of disability, gender identification, ethnicity, race, and/or sexuality – that they are part of the library community, and that they will find books, activities, and resources to engage and support them. They will have a forum to fully express themselves in a non-judgmental environment, building their confidence and resilience, improving health and wellbeing and strengthening their creative, teamwork, writing, artistic and language skills. Book group activities would include taking turns reading aloud, acting out stories, quiet individual reading, and book discussions. Basic mindfulness and meditation exercises would form part of some sessions, to help students switch off from the school day.”
In St Mungo’s, we are having three incubator groups: the “EAL/storytelling for wellbeing” group every Thursdays, The “Storytelling for wellbeing” group lunch on Tuesdays and once a month the “Storycraft” group on Monday at lunch. They are very small groups where pupils can feel safe to create, share and speak aloud without any judgment.
The Storytelling clubs all started smoothly by an introduction session about the project, checking about their feelings by drawing or sharing with the help of the wellbeing wheel.
The Tuesday lunch club has decided to take another path and to explore stories from their dreams. They all have received a “journal” which they are, at the moment, personalising to make it their very own!
Later on, the pupils will be able to take it home and start to write about their dreams.
I’m very excited about this project and very intrigued to see how it turns!
To be continued…
There were a plethora of activities running across departments for our BGE Health & Wellbeing Festival in All Saints.
We had a chill out room in the library with lots of bookish activities to choose from; origami bookmarks, puzzles & games, beanbag and cushion reading corner and mindfulness colouring, among others.
A massive thanks to Michael Lee Richardson for his amazing LGBTQI+ Pride workshop with a group of our brilliant S2 pupils. They had such a great time working on blackout poems, creating a collaborative poem and discussing a range of topics from The Gorbals Vampire to storylining for Hollyoaks. Poem and pics below!
All Colours, All Pride – a group poem
Pride smells nice, like lavender
pillow spray that makes you sleep.
Pride is calming,
a mix of blue and red.
Pride is dyed lilac hair.
Pride is violets,
and sunflowers,
roses
and dandelions,
Pride is daisies.
Pride is yellow blonde hair.
Pride is blood and rage and danger
and balloons.
Pride is blush
and nail polish
and lipstick
and eyeshadow
and jasper.
Pride is a red pen.
Pride is a blue sea ocean,
calm and relaxed.
Pride is a clear blue sky.
Pride is sad and upset.
Pride is the blue stripes in the trans flag.
Pride is blue stars and seagulls,
Pride is the police,
Pride is drowning and depressed.
Pride is cold and winter.
Pride is orange, like Garfield.
Pride is a Minion.
Pride is confusion.
Pride is the colour of fruits, vegetables,
drinks.
Pride is all around,
Wherever you are.
Smithycroft pupils joined many other people across Scotland and pledged to read for at least 6 minutes on Wednesday 11 May. The campaign aiming to highlight the positive impact reading can have on mental health and wellbeing was a huge success – in the end there was over 450 000 minutes pledges which far exceeded the initial goal! All Smithycroft pupils had an opportunity to read during the first period – I can’t imagine a better way to start a school day! 🙂
As part of the Wee Write! festival, we have had the pleasure to have Darren Simspon talking with a class of young people, lead by Mr Beaton.
Darren shared with us what inspires him, and what he would like his readers to take away from his books. It was so inspiring that our young people felt free to interview him for Swatch – the school librarians eMagazine.
