Category Archives: Duke of Edinburgh volunters

Holyrood Secondary – Reading Schools Gold Award

Holyrood Secondary has achieved Reading Schools Gold Accreditation. What a fantastic journey we’ve had!

Well done to every single young person, member of staff and parent who has been involved in promoting and celebrating reading. Thank you to our partners in the community : Glasgow Zine Library, and Govanhill Library. Huge thanks to Scottish Book Trust for supporting us on this journey, and providing the framework enabling us to mark off all our achievements while having fun with reading.

We’ve had many adventures such as Chapter Chats Book Group and Podcast, Zine Making Workshops, coffee mornings, whole school Read Around the World, author visits, Poetry at Hampden Bowling Club, and boundless energy and ideas from pupil helpers and Duke of Edinburgh Volunteers who have championed reading throughout. At the heart of it all has been enjoying and celebrating reading and getting the right book into the right hands of our wonderful keen readers. We’ve been reading in the library, in classrooms, in the fuel zone, in the playground, at home, on holiday. Books can be enjoyed everywhere, anytime.

The Reading Schools programme, developed by Scottish Book Trust, is an accreditation programme for schools that are committed to building a reading culture for their learners and communities. The programme supports schools to build a reading culture, where every pupil is encouraged to feed their imagination through books. There are three levels of accreditation – Core, Silver and Gold. Reading Schools – Scottish Book Trust

We’ve had an amazing time, and can heartily recommend Reading Schools to anyone who wants to celebrate reading, with plenty of help on hand from Scottish Book Trust.

Holyrood Library : Duke of Edinburgh Volunteers

Our Duke of Edinburgh Volunteers have been doing fantastic work, promoting books and reading, creating book displays, organising fun activities, along with regular admin tasks like adding books to stock.

Milly in S3 has always been an avid reader.

Milly Recommends:

“Percy Jackson is a fantasy book based on Greek mythology. It’s a story about a boy who discovered he is a demigod (half god and half human) he gets sent to this camp for demigods where he finds out that monsters are after demigods, He gets sent out on a dangerous quest. These books are in a series of 5 AND the new tv series just came out on Disney +. If you enjoyed the descriptions, then I have donated 4/5 of the books to the library.”

New copies!

Now on Disney+

“Reading has dramatically changed my way of writing in English, I can see the difference in my writing for over the years from when I started reading. It’s also a very fun way to pass time with the right book” Milly

Celeste – helping the school community

Celeste is now in her second year of volunteering, on course for the Silver Award. She has previously created a whole new Music Section in the library, added new stock into the catalogue, and tidied and squared up the layout of the library after a busy day of classes. A highlight was assisting the Scottish Ambulance Service every week, by helping them with their equipment for the Saving Young Lives workshops. This was a huge task, and usually involved several trips up and down the lift with precious cargo of equipment. Paramedics Sharon and Frank were so impressed by Celeste’s commitment and reliability.

Amna – supporting young learners

For her Bronze Award, Amna developed skills in supporting and encouraging S1/2 library users, who often enjoyed the fun quizzes and activities she devised. This term for Silver Award, Amna came up with the idea of creating an inter-active Animal book display, with paw prints to colour in. Animals are very popular with S1, and Mr Mansefield’s class used the book display to help with research for a class project. Fun and educational !

Animal books, with paw prints

Zurie – Creative Writer and book lover

As a published author herself – with the White Water Writers’ Group – Zurie has plenty of knowledge of what makes a good book. During her volunteering time she has created book displays, and helped to keep the library catalogue up to date by adding new books, deleting old titles, and choosing books to be purchased for our Dystopian book display.

What to Read for New Year book display

Chosen by Us (S4 Writers Group), Dystopian

Filza – graphics and design specialist

Continuing onto Silver, after completing Bronze, Filza uses her design skills to make posters and whiteboard signs for special events such as Book Week Scotland, Earth Day, and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Ceremony in December 2025. Her posters always add style to our library events.