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!

EAL Event at Springburn

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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.

Damien Love: Author Event

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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.

Book Reviews

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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!

 

St. Andrew’s February Round-Up

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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!

 

February 2020 Roundup – St Margaret Mary’s Secondary School

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. 

  1. Ward 13 by Tommy Donbavand (13)
  2. Knife Edge by Robert Swindells (13)
  3. Runaway by Ann Evans (11)
  4. The Front Room by Michelle Magorian (11)
  5. Jon for Short by Malorie Blackman (10)
  6. Good Boy by Mal Peet (8)
  7. Ghosting by Keith Gray (7)
  8. White Eagles by Elizabeth Wein (7)
  9. Nightmare by Ann Evans (7)
  10. United by Emma Norry (6)
  11. The Lane by Iain McLaughlin (6)
  12. 2 Die 4 by Nigel Hinton (6)
  13. Letting Go by Cat Clarke (6)
  14. The Number 7 Shirt by Alan Gibbons (5)
  15. Have a Go by Jon Mayhew (5)
  16. Copy Cat by Tommy Donbavand (5)
  17. Ghost Stadium by Tom Palmer (5)
  18. Shadow Girl by Sally Nicholls (4)
  19. The Last Days of Archie Maxwell by Annabel Pitcher (4)
  20. Final Girl by Tim Collins (4)
  21. Wasted by Karen Moncrieffe (3)
  22. Tilly’s Promise by Linda Newbery (3)
  23. The Tiger on his Back by Bernard Ashley (3)
  24. Plague by Echo Freer (3)
  25. Kidnap by Tommy Donbavand (3)
  26. ME2 by Catherine Bruton (3)
  27. Keeper by Ann Evans (2)
  28. Home by Tommy Donbavand (2)
  29. The Wishing Doll by Beverly Sandford (2)
  30. Sitting Target by John Townsend (2)
  31. Change by Chitra Soundar (2)
  32. Stop by Jenny Spangler (2)
  33. Stalker by Tony Lee (2)
  34. The Corridor by Mark Wright (2)
  35. Johnny Delgado by Kevin Brooks (2)
  36. The Night Raid by Caroline Lawrence (2)
  37. Second Best Friend by Non Pratt (2)
  38. The Family Tree by Non Pratt (2)

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?”

February 2020 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

LGBT History Month: The Library celebrated LGBT History Month by displaying the fiction and non-fiction titles selected by the school’s LGBT group. The titles were chosen as part of the LGBT SLIF-funded project. Pupils used homemade bunting as well as resources from the TIE campaign website.

Purple Friday was celebrated in the school’s Fuel Zone with live music and a bake sale. The Library marked the occasion as well by implementing our new Pride section that features fiction and non-fiction books about LGBT and equalities themes. The school’s LGBT group have decided on the criteria for the section. Double copies are placed within the relevant genre sections throughout the Library in order to cross-promote LGBT stories and authors.

We’ve created an LGBT reading list that includes the titles chosen by the pupils: LGBT+ Book List

Blind Date with a Book: Our amazing pupil Library Assistant, Sharia, created her first Library display. To coincide with Valentine’s Day, her ‘Blind Date with a Book’ display featured books wrapped in paper. She wanted pupils to take a chance on a book they may otherwise not have chosen themselves and participants were told they had to read at least one chapter of the book before returning it. The display was a hit! One hundred books were issued from the display and the students had a lot of fun guessing which book they were matched with. Great job, Sharia!

Senior Participatory Spend Consultation: The Library will be dedicating a portion of our 2020-2021 budget on books for our Senior Section. This will involve engaging with S4 and S5 pupils through discussions and surveys in order to identify the authors, genres, and subjects that interest them the most. So far we’ve visited five S5/6 English classes and received some interesting feedback from the students. Throughout March we will work with S4 PSE pupils. Our findings will be published o the blog in April.

St. Andrew’s Library Returns!

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After a rather uneventful couple of weeks due to the prelims, the library at St. Andrew’s is back up and running in its full glory! It has been a busy week but it was great to see everyone back using the library again.

During the prelims I ran a ‘Mobile Library’ system in which I visited some classes with a selection of books for them to borrow. The system was such a resounding success that one of our Drama teachers, Mrs. Little, asked if we could make it a permanent fixture for the Safe Space she operates from her classroom Wednesdays after school. This gives pupils who are struggling with social anxiety issues a chance to benefit from the services that the school library provides in a more ambient and relaxed environment.

  Wednesday also saw the return of our Manga Club which we are hoping to branch out from being primarily a drawing class, to include games, videos and discussion. I have also been giving the club first dibs on new arrivals!

In other news, on Thursday we had renowned author Kwame Alexander visit the school. This was organised by our Literacy department but it was a pleasure to be there and Kwame’s talk for the S2 pupils was excellent. I was sure to stock up on plenty of extra copies of some of Kwame’s books in preparation. I’m glad I did too as his books have been flying off the shelves since!

There are many more exciting things to come over the next couple of months so watch this space!

JPA Library Book Club

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New Club!

Today was the first meeting of the JPA Library Book Club!

The Book Club will now run every Wednesday at Lunch Time, and the library will only be open to members during this time.

The Book Club has been created after requests from pupils to have a quiet reading space in the school during leisure time, offering a peaceful place to enjoy reading during a busy school day.  It also gives kids the opportunity to read what they want to read, without worrying about being quizzed or questioned on it.

The Book Club also gives pupils the chance to challenge themselves, set reading goals, monitor their reading habits, read together, and write reviews and recommendations for other pupils in the school.  All of the kids taking part in the Book Club are actively participating in the First Ministers Reading Challenge.  Already, kids are challenging each other to finish reading 100 books this year!