Category Archives: St Mungo’s Academy

The epic Birth of the D&D club @St Mungo’s library

This year I have decided to open a D&D club in the library even if I have no clue what am I doing! I’m a beginner player, never DM…and still don’t get most of the rules ^^

Well despite this very unreliable experience, I just decided to pick a date and time and promoted it during the library inductions for S1, because why not! Fool of me! A COHORT of excited pupils has answered the call (thank you Stranger things!)

So I found players (too many –“) now I just had to figure out how to DM, in like a week. I was doomed…But my lucky star decided to send me on my path, some help. A member of the staff offered her help to DM!! And another one gave me 20 dice or so for FREE along with some free D&D books!

(Yes I have a pretty amazing lucky star and no I will not exchange her for anything. Lucky stars are individual and meant to be cherished.)

I was finally ready to launch the first D&D club in St Mungo’s!

And because lucky star magic is never too much, she sent me a pupil who wanted to DM!! I have now two D&D groups in the library: one DM by a pupil and another one conducted by a member of the staff and myself for beginners.

Every Friday at lunch, I close the library for epic and fun adventures created by pupils.

In the meantime, I try to learn on my own and take every piece of advice from librarian colleagues and players:

Last Friday, I participated to "Starting D&D in your library" webinar by @lucasjmaxwell just to pretend I know what am I doing 😅#dnd #library #club pic.twitter.com/T0dL31g1j2

— St Mungo's Academy library (@stmungo_library) September 26, 2022

Summer reading competition

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Over the summer pupils were encouraged to read for pleasure by completing a reading bingo challenge!

Summer Reading Bingo.png

They had to click pictures as evidence and submit them to the library to have a chance to win.

And this year’s winners are…

Congratulations to both of them!

Picture evidence as a bonus+, taken for “Read to a pet” challenge:

Back to school, welcoming our new Ukrainian friends!

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Welcome to our school!

St Mungo’s Academy, like many schools in Glasgow, has welcomed new pupils from Ukraine this year.

To help our newcomers to settle in our school the library was part of a “welcome committee”. On the first day, we welcomed the pupils and their families for a morning coffee chat in the library so they can begin to be familiar with the school and meet key staff. We talked about the education system here in the UK and at St Mungo’s, gave them their uniform, and offered them a wee tour of the school along with their new timetable.

For the occasion, the library helpers and S6 pupils got ready a beautiful welcome banner:

Later on, the whole school displayed visible symbols of welcome around the school site.

The induction period

The first week their timetable was specially designed to know them, their interest, strength, and talent as well as their English level but most of all it was about nurturing, budding, and befriending.

So we had a lot of ice breaker activities in the library along with music, dance, math, and literacy (classroom language essentials, keywords…) fun classes.

After this week, they were confident enough to join the mainstream classes.

A few days after something happened in the library during lunch break: pupils were downloading apps to better communicate with their new Ukrainian classmates.

I wish our newcomers success, to make new friends, and to enjoy their journey in St Mungo’s Academy.

St Mungo’s library- Summer round-up!

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The teachers and staff are back to school meanwhile, the librarian, never really left…

Indeed, I have spend most of the summer working in the library.

You must wonder: “what did she do during this 7 weeks, alone in school, like an wandering ghost?” Well, rather than a ghost, I was more like a busy bee.

The first weeks, I embraced the “dynamic shelving mode”. I placed all the books in facing display making the collection more appealing, accessible, navigable, fun, enjoyable for our readers.

I created a “Shelf help” section! Fiction & NF books have been selected to help pupils overcome experiences, thoughts and feelings that can be overwhelming.

I designed and replaced all the library signage, to make it clearer, more inclusive and practical for our readers:

I weeded the collection and recycled book jackets making space for new books:

I received NEW STOCK (hooray!!) which means that I had to catalogue and displayed it:

I worked with my librarian colleagues on the “Well being for storytelling project” involving mastering very complicated story base games (some of this games have a book rule of +20p!!)

I followed online webinars and training:

Towards the end of the summer break, the library has been involved in the P7 transition programme, offering library activities to the future S1:

And ultimately, I created 200+ library cards for the new S1:

A buzzzy 🐝 indeed 😜

The library is super ready to rock this new school year!

“Keep the heid” competition and one of the winner is…

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Past May for the Mental health week awareness, the library display committee did a great job on making a display to promote reading for #keeptheheid

“It’s ok to need a break sometimes – when everything is getting to you, remember that mental health is important now more than ever. Take time for yourself.” Scotland now.

To celebrate the power of reading, the pupils selected books about mental health, wellbeing, self-esteem, positive quotes, posters from #Keeptheheid campaign and lovely quotes from different inspiring people (Malala…) a bit of fiction and non-fiction all together.

“Taking some time for yourself to relax and do things you enjoy like reading is important to help look after your mental health and wellbeing. It has been scientifically proven that reading for just SIX minutes a day boosts your mental health by 68%.” Keep the heid.

The pupils were very excited to participate to the photo competition organised by SLIC Scotland. They had fun clicking pictures of Scully Escobear and friends reading.

“He is not the only one to love reading, he shares his passion with many pupils in our school.” S1 pupil.

You can imagine my excitement when I received the email about our library winning the photographic competition (£100 Waterstones voucher hooray!!) and I let you have a look on the memorable reaction of the pupils when I told them

We had a good laugh during that lunch 😀 and we are planning to have a sub-committee to create a participatory buying list.

St Mungo’s “storytelling for mental health” project launch!

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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…

S.M Wilson meets St Mungo’s S1 pupils

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As the part of the “Wee write festival” St Mungo’s library had the chance to receive the author S.M Wilson. She writes romance and young adult fiction.

During this very interactive session, the author talked about her books as well as her love for dinosaurs and space.

S1 pupils especially discovered the inspiration behind S. M. Wilson’s The Extinction Trials and The Infinity Files series and tested their knowledge on all
things dinosaur and space, followed by Q&A.

The library helpers, Helena, Julia and Jack even interviewed her for the monthly Glasgow School libraries eMagazine!

Gary Chudleigh visits St Mungo’s library!

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Some S2 EAL pupils had the chance to meet the talented comics creator Gary Chudleigh!

He gave them some tips on how to build a story premise and keys to write a comic script.

At the end of the session, despite being a sunny Friday last period, some pupils stayed back to have a wee chat with Gary. There is nothing better than watching pupils interact with an author.

He also talked about is last project, a new set of four comics, every story is a one-shot and self-contained, but each is connected and set in the same world.

You can help to make this collection a reality by showing your support and pre-ordering via kickstarter.

World book day(s)! at St Mungo’s library

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Why celebrating “world book” for a day when we can do it for an entire WEEK!

From the 28th of February till the 4th of March, the St Mungo’s library had a full program of book festivities to give the chance to every pupils in the school to celebrate.

The daily S1 library visits enjoyed a very special scavenger hunt made for the occasion. Every participants received a book token to get a free book from their favourite bookshop in town.

At lunch, the library helpers worked hard to display all the free books we received for the occasion and made sure to spread the love of reading among the school.