October 2019 Roundup – St Margaret Mary’s Secondary School Library

National Poetry Day:   National Poetry Day – an annual UK-wide celebration of poetry now on its 25th year. This year’s theme is ‘Truth’. We’ve handed out FREE official National Poetry Day postcards. As it’s the UNESCO Year of Indigenous Languages, the featured ‘truth’ poems are written in Manx, Cornish, Welsh, Scots, and Gaelic alongside their English translations. We’re also promoting these amazing YA titles written in verse. Download the list here: Books in Verse Reading List

Participatory Workshops:  Over the course of October, the Library worked with various S2-S4 English classes on selecting books for the library. This year’s emphasis is on acquiring more accessible stock that will appeal to a broad range of readers. We targeted publishers Barrington Stoke and Badger Learning websites.

Barrington Stoke is a Scottish company who publishes books written by well-known authors that are suitable for different types of readers using specially designed dyslexia-friendly font and layout as well as printing the text on cream paper to reduce glare. The stories are short length than standard novels and designed for Reading Ages and Interest Ages. The language is specially edited to improve accessibility.

Badger Learning is a UK-based publisher who specialise in shorter length fiction for Young People. Like Barrington Stoke, stories are designed for Reading Ages and Interest Ages. Teen Reads, Two Sides, and YA Reads are different series published by Badger that includes a range of genres and themes.

Classes logged onto the Library’s PCs and were guided through the websites by the Librarian. Pupils were instructed peruse the titles and features of the website then list what books they thought would be good for the Library to stock. The Librarian correlated the data. See February’s post for the results. Pupils found the activity fun and made them feel included in the decision making of the Library

 Bookopoly –St Oswalds: The Library has been working with St Oswald’s English Department as part of the school’s FMRC. Bookopoly has been rolled out to all St Oswald’s pupils. This reading challenge encourages participants to explore genres and non-fiction subjects. Pupils are given their Bookopoly board. Each ‘property’ (or, ‘genre’) is colour coded on the board. Participants must read two books per genre (or one non-fiction book per subject) to collect their genre badge and have their name put into the end of the year prize draw. Further chances to win can be achieved by completing a ‘Chance’ block. This could be a recommendation from the teacher, the Librarian, a book that’s over 300 pages, etc. Participants can record their progress and opinion on the books they’ve read on the back of their Bookopoly board.

October 2019 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

October was a very eventful month here at Shawlands Academy Library. Catch up with our highlights or keep scrolling to find out more info!

National Poetry Day: National Poetry Day – an annual UK-wide celebration of poetry now on its 25th year. This year’s theme is ‘Truth’. We’ve handed out FREE official National Poetry Day postcards. As it’s the UNESCO Year of Indigenous Languages, the featured ‘truth’ poems are written in Manx, Cornish, Welsh, Scots, and Gaelic alongside their English translations.

We’re also promoting these amazing YA titles written in verse. Download the list here: Books in Verse Reading List

   

                                  

Black History Month: Black History Month is observed in the UK during October to celebrate the achievements of African and Caribbean people at home and abroad. It is an opportunity to honour those who fought for equality and civil rights against racism, discrimination, and colonialism as well as to highlight the societal contributions of black individuals and communities. Black History Month works to ensure that Black History is included in History and recognised in mainstream education throughout the year.

For Libraries, BHM is another opportunity to spotlight and promote some fantastic literary talent and books. Shawlands Academy helped support BHM by facilitating pupil-led information sessions and activities throughout October including BHM presentations by S4 pupils, a bake sale, and a pupil curated display in the library. The students involved created beautiful posters to be used for the display and throughout the school. Books were selected by the students. Click here for a full list of BHM + Beyond books available in the Library. Black History Month and Beyond 2019 Reading Lists

Shelf Help in the Library: October is Mental Health Month and  World Mental Health Day is celebrated on the 10th to raise awareness, education, and advocacy against the social stigmas attached to mental health matters. To coincide with these observances, the Library has launched a new non-fiction collection relating to mental health and welling as well as books about physical health topics. With a reported 1 in 8 children having a diagnosable mental disorder (NHS,  2017) as well as a significant increase in the number of specialist referrals  (22% between  2013/2014 to 2017/2018) (Audit Scotland, 2018), it is vital that Young People have access to relevant information.

The School Library can play a role by providing reliable literature to pupils. This year, we are promoting the Reading Agency’s Shelf Help and Reading Well Books on Prescription programme who supply a list of reliable, well-researched mental health literature endorsed and/or written by experts. We have invested part of our budget to purchase the remainder of the titles from the list that will be arriving later on in the year.

 

The Shelf Help and Books on Prescription Fiction titles are found in the Fiction section.

For a more detailed list of mental health-related literature available in the section as well as a wider range of fiction dealing with mental health topics and/or containing characters experiencing mental health issues, click here: Mental Health Book List. For more information about the Reading Well with Books on Prescription titles, click here. Many of these titles are also available from the Community Libraries and can be reserved on the catalogue

Find more mental health information for Young People on the following websites:

Glasgow Association for Mental Health, Mentalhealth.org.uk, Mental Health Network Greater Glasgow, SAMH , See Me Scotland, Scottish Children’s Services Coalition, Support in Mind, Young Minds

Sources:

Audit Scotland (2018) Children and young people’s mental health

NHS Digital (2017) Mental health of children and young people in England, 2017

Scottish Government (2018) Children and young people’s mental health taskforce: delivery plan

Author Visit: Shawlands Academy Library has invited author, poet, and Bafta-winning scriptwriter Michael Lee Richardson to deliver a series of poetry workshops to the school’s LGBT+ group as part of a project between Hillhead and Smithycroft secondary schools as part of the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) school library improvement funding. Michael introduced himself and his work to the group and very generously donated copies of Proud, compiled by Juno Dawson, which features one of his short stories.

Our first exercise involved Michael displaying a lemon, three stones, a pair of plastic hands, and a Pride flag along a table. Unbeknownst to the group, each item represented an emotion. Pupils were instructed to write descriptive words about the objects relating to senses. The result…..

JOY (Lemon)

Joy is softish and round with no smell.                                                                                                    Joy looks like a lemon, yellow, tastes sour, feels lumpy, and smells questionable.                         Joy tastes of acid and citrus, and joy smells fresh.                                                                                Joy is round with a bumpy texture, smells very potent.                                                                        Joy is a luminous yellow baseball-like plant with a soft nip surrounding the Satanic, squishy, radioactive emblem stood there with a grace like 1,000 red angels.

ENVY (Stones)

Envy feels cold, it has nice colours and interesting shapes. It smells like absolutely nothing.       Envy is hard, round, flat and shiny.                                                                                                        Envy is disformed shapes smooth but gritty.                                                                                       Envy is vinegary, cold and smells like salt.                                                                                            Envy makes the sound, ‘thunk!’                                                                                                               Envy is calming seabed quartz it lights up the room with a relaxing aura.

FEAR (Plastic hands)

Fear smells like rubber feels like rubber it has a cool shape and details.                                           Fear is squishy, rubbery, and creepy.                                                                                                     Fear wouldn’t really make a noise.                                                                                                          Fear is a smooth plastic baby hand.

LOVE (Pride flag)

Love is a flag.                                                                                                                                                 Love is colourful it feels like fabric and smells like Skittles.                                                               Love is plastic and smooth. and smells like air.

Instagram: Some of the School Librarians are using the Glasgow Life School Libraries Instagram account to highlight some of the work they do. Over the course of the week, I’ve been asked to show what we get up to over my two schools: Shawlands Academy and St. Margaret Mary’s Secondary School.

Hurricane Book Club: The Library is one of three participating Glasgow secondary schools piloting a Young Adult version of Hurricane Book Group. Hurricane Book Group was originally started as an adult book group in Orkney Libraries that gave an opportunity for readers to connect with each other remotely and chat with the author online. This term we’re reading the 2019 Branford Boase award-winning book I am Thunder by Muhammad Khan which questions how far you will go to stand up for what you believe in.

“Fifteen-year-old Muzna Saleem is used to being invisible. So no one is more surprised than her when Arif Malik, the hottest boy in school, takes a sudden interest. But Arif is hiding a terrible secret and, as they begin to follow a dark path, Muzna faces an impossible choice: keep quiet and betray her beliefs, or speak out and betray her heart”.

Our first meeting was a chance to discuss our thoughts on the book so far and come up with questions to submit to the author for when we meet again in November and chat with Muhanmmad on Twitter. Pupils engaged in lively conversation and debate about the themes and the book and how they apply to our everyday lives.

 

S1 Library Cards!!

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It has been a long time coming, but the S1s have finally been getting their library cards this week. Our 1st Years have been frequent users of the library and seem to really value it as a space in which they can read, do homework or even just have some quiet time away from the crowds during break time!

It is apparent to me that just having a library card makes the pupils feel like the library really is for them and I have already seen a massive increase in borrowing over the last couple of days. Above all, it is great to see so many young people keen to read and borrow books. Long may it continue!