Category Archives: Bannerman High School

The Library Young Team with Graeme Armstrong in Bannerman

For our third, and final, author visit for this project we welcomed acclaimed author Graeme Armstrong who delivered a thought-provoking and inspiring talk to all our S3 pupils, who left the workshop theater buzzing!

Graeme Armstrong spoke about his experiences of youth gangs when he was our pupils’ age, and how bleak life was during that time – as he recalls in his novel “The Young Team“. He thankfully climbed out of that downward spiral and now is using his life experience as an instrument to raise awareness of gang culture’s dangers, and to improve young people’s lives. Thank you Graeme!

This Project is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund.

The Library Young Team with Alan Bissett, and more

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Our second session for this project consisted in a brilliant visit from Scottish author Alan Bissett, where a group of S3 boys engaged with topics such as toxic masculinity, lad culture, and consent. Alan Bissett used his most recent book “Lads: a Guide to Respect and Consent” and his collaboration with Police Scotland’s campaign “Don’t Be That Guy” as foundations for a conversation with young boys on empathizing with the issue of women’s safety and giving advice on how to behave respectfully around girls and women. He also spoke about how socio-cultural expectations on boys and gender roles create a damaging barrier that prevents young men from talking about their emotions and mental health with potentially dangerous consequences. This useful advice was intervaled with some light-hearted banter and our S3 responded very positively to this visit – we all enjoyed it, thank you Alan!

This Project is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund.

Genre tasting at the Parents’ Evening 🍽

More events happened in the library! Ms Greer from English and Ms Bortolato organised a book trattoria in the library for the latest parents’ evening and family learning.
The library got transformed in a little restaurant where parents and their children could choose from a menu of genres, familiarize themselves with junior fiction books and talk about their thoughts on the books they tasted.

The Manga Club contributed to this evening with a Manga Appetizers station where patrons could snack on manga history (typed up by our wee club members!) and famous comics while they waited to be seated. 🥡🥢

Bannerman Roundup

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March is another exciting month for Bannerman! We have quite a few events organised for all, starting this week as Thursday 7th March was 🌟📚World Book Day📚🌟, the annual worldwide celebration of reading for pleasure: the library was open at lunch with snacks and book-related activities available – which the pupils enjoyed as the before & after photo demonstrates! Last week, all pupils also received their £1 World Book Day token with a short presentation on how & where to use it.

world book day display
table of world book day activities world book days activities on table

For a family learning evening later in March, Ms Bortolato and the English Department are working on activities to involve parents into the junior fiction their kids read. Pupils from our Manga Club contributed by writing up a short history of Manga to place on the genre table at the event! 💻💭🗯

That’s all for the moment! We’ll be back at the end of the Month for another update! 📖

The Library Young Team – Session 1

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Bannerman High School is among 10 secondary schools across Glasgow City Council and Renfrewshire to take part in a project co-run with Renfrewshire School Libraries. The project is called “The Library Young Team” and it is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund. It will see three thought-provoking authors visit the participating schools to talk to S3/4/5 pupils about topics as gang culture, crime, toxic masculinity, and ways out of these suffocating environments – as well as share some of their writing journeys.

For the first session of this project, it was great to have Brian Conaghan at Bannerman High School introducing his book “Treacle Town” to a crowd of S6 pupils, talking about gang culture in Scotland but also giving writing advice to senior pupils working on their English portfolio. The project will see Alan Bissett and Graeme Armstrong visiting the school in the next couple of months.

This Project is supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund.

LGBTQ History Month in Bannerman 🏳️‍🌈📚🎉

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February is LGBTQ History Month! A wonderful opportunity to uncover the rich tapestry of contributions and impact made by LGBTQ individuals across History, Literature, STEM, Music, Art and more. Such contributions are slowly becoming part of the school curriculums and becoming common knowledge, which is why it’s important to keep raising awareness on LGBTQ History.

In fact, initiatives like these help bring LGBTQ history-makers to the forefront of the educational offer to our young people, creating a landscape of equal representation and visibility for this community which is still marginalized in several fields. We continue to celebrate LGBTQ history so that year after year, it will get better and better! ❤🧡💛💚💙💜

You can also learn about LGBTQ History by borrowing e-books and audiobooks on the Libby app thanks to your school library card. There is a teens’ list on Libby:

Teens – Young Adult – LGBT+ – Glasgow Libraries – OverDrive

Pertaining the historical aspect, the librarian would like to put a focus on this LGBTQ History source available on Libby:

Find out more online at:

LGBT+ History Month at lgbtplushistorymonth.co.uk

LGBT+ History Month 2024 at Stonewall

LGBT+ History Month: Everything You Need to Know at The Proud Trust

New Arrivals in Our Manga Collection

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Just because it will never look this immaculate again – luckily so, as the librarian is looking forward to seeing the expressions of joy and surprise on the faces of our keen manga readers as they borrow all these newly-arrived books! These here are just some of our most requested titles, but there is plenty more to explore in the library: Naruto, One Piece, Komi Can’t Communicate and many many more!

: Seraph of the End

: My Hero Academia

: Demonslayer

: Blue Exorcist

: Attack on Titan

: Assassination Classroom

Manga club in Bannerman is always in full swing and we keep coming up with new activities and games. Here are some of them:

Guess the anime theme song (we play a theme song on Spotify and guess)
Who would say that? (we pick a widely popular manga and read out a pivotal speech bubble, the other club members have to guess which character says that line)
Colouring pages, always popular and by request
Blooket manga quiz that the pupils regularly update
Guess who? (we describe a manga character and have to guess who it is)
Learning to draw manga-style with our how-to books
Making bookmarks inspired by manga
Discussing the manga the pupils have been reading, exchanging recommendations
Manga Multiverse: we think of mashups of two different manga and what it would be like in terms of plot, characters etc, for example Demon Slayer x Tokyo Ghoul.

Exciting New Projects & Adventures

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We start the new year waiting for many new exciting book releases and books that have created a buzz, among which: “Impossible Creatures” by Katherine Rundell, winner of Waterstones Book of the Year 2023; the long-awaited 5^th volume of “Heartstopper” by Alice Oseman, sure to be constantly on loan; and “Treacle Town” by Brian Conaghan. We will be honoured to host Brian Conaghan for a session here at Bannerman soon as part of ‘The Library Young Team,’ a SLIF-funded project by Glasgow School Libraries & Renfrewshire School Libraries. This project focuses on the theme of gang culture and will also see Alan Bissett and Graeme Armstrong visiting Bannerman High for a session with our pupils.

As for the non-fiction focus of the month for the school library newsletter, Ms Bortolato has been thinking about travelling away from the darkness of January (and yes it’s only the 4th of January now, what about it?) and planning a new adventures as an antidote to the winter blues. Eager to share adventure ideas, she quickly realised that there is already too much planning to do in a school, so let it suffice that we might just enjoy a bit of bookish wanderlust within the pages of these suggested readings…

See, the school library provides you with extremely cheap travel opportunities so make sure you go to the libraryscanner(.com*) for the best bargains.
* Website doesn’t actually exist

Bannerman’s Readers’ Corner and Newsletter

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At Bannerman, we have a new welcoming display outside the library – a book recommendations wall! Pupils can pick up a recommendation slip from the library during their reading period, and when they have finished their book they can write a short review of it. This gives us a chance to showcase the range of books our young readers choose, as well as inspire other pupils take up their peers’ suggestion, and elaborate their thoughts on what they read thus becoming a bit more critical readers.

Ms Bortolato has also started a staff newsletter which will be monthly, with the aim of making school staff aware of what’s new in the wonderful world of children’s literature – plus a different curricular focus each month. This month, we shone a light on the library’s extensive music collection! What will be the next one…?

Bannerman’s new library helpers

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pupils writing the book genre inside the book

We have some new library helpers among the S1 pupils! This group of kids walked up to the librarian asking if they could help with anything, because they were bored… well surely there is a lot to help with, as the junior fiction has been recently divided by genres! So, pens at hand, they helped the librarian write the genre of books in the first page. Hopefully they’ll keep being this keen to help, because with about 1,815 books in junior fiction alone, the librarian cannot do this all by herself! #teamworkdreamwork

pupils writing the book genre inside the book

Genrefying the Library

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At Bannerman High, the fiction section has been divided by genre rather than alphabetical order. This was done in hopes of supporting our readers in finding a book they might enjoy by following the kind of plot they prefer the most, as well as to invite them to read across different genres. The genres are: history in stories; animals are pals; action; fantasy and magical stories; comedy; slice of life; crime-horror-mystery.

There will also be a monthly “theme” display where the pupils will have the opportunity to highlight a specific collection in the library.