Tag Archives: Author Visit

Creative Writing @Holyrood

We’ve been busy celebrating in the library this term. In May we welcomed Julie McNeil, poet and football fan supreme. What great timing for the Euros! We learned how emotions and sport are closely linked, shared our own sporting memories and started to turn these into poems. There was inspiring discussion and writing from Mr. Devlin’s S1 class. The S2 Writing mentors joined in working alongside and encouraging everyone. This workshop was part of Glasgow Libraries Wee Write Festival, supported by the Scottish Poetry Library.

Julie’s Workshop

It was brilliant meeting Julie and hearing her feedback afterwards: “What a fantastic group of writers! Really enjoyed their company and hearing all their great ideas”. We now have copies of Julie’s books ‘We are Scottish Football’, and ‘Mission Dyslexia’ in the library, to borrow and enjoy.

Also in May, we celebrated the one-year anniversary of our White Water Writers Project, funded by the School Library Improvement Fund. Since writing their own book, the group has gone from strength to strength, mentoring a ‘Writing for Fun’ club for S1 pupils, taking part in Scottish Book Trust 50 Words writing competition, writing poetry, sharing book reviews, and generally having a brilliant time.

It’s always a party when the Writing mentors are around!

S2 Writers Celebration

In June, we had a special visit from Charis, Careers Adviser, who admired the work of our hardworking S1 and S2 lunchtime team, and presented prizes.

Visit from Charis, SDS

We feel very lucky to have so much support for Creative Writing here at Holyrood, both from everyone in the school and from Glasgow Libraries, and also from visitors who help us.

Whether any of our writers go on to do this as a career, or just as a hobby, writing is an incredible talent to have, and we want to hear your voices. So keep writing – You’ve been absolutely fantastic this year!

Euros competition

Have a wonderful holiday.

April @ St. Andrew’s

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We had loads on this month, including our final author visit as part of the Library Young Team – SLIF project (funded by the Scottish Government). We also have a new club, the rebirth of an old one plus the establishment of a School Library Council.

Graeme Armstrong at St. Andrew’s!

This month we were delighted to welcome Graeme Armstrong, author of the highly acclaimed The Young Team, to the school as our final LYT author.

Hes poke about his book and the ‘story behind the story’ which included some emotional and also inspiring aspects of his life growing up as a gang member and how he found his way out.

Our S3s were absolutely captivated and our only five copies of his book went just moments after the talk concluded.

Games Club!

Our pupil helpers have established a new board and card games club! This will be on every Wednesday lunchtime and pupils have the chance to play any of our board and card games available in the library. We are hoping to add more

Other news

Thanks to our librarian colleagues who selected some bonus books from Waterstones for our schools. The selection at St. Andrew’s has gone down a storm already and provides the pupils with plenty of new books to keep them going until the summer holidays!

The Manga Club is also back! Due to popular demand, the club will take place in Ms. Glass’ room right across the corridor from us. I will be working with the pupils who organise the club to provide new reading material, games and activities!

On Tuesday (30th), we had our inaugural Library Council meeting. Unfortunately due to being off on study leave, our senior members couldn’t make it but our younger contingency came up with some excellent suggestions. Some exciting changes coming soon!

March in St Paul’s

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March was an extremely busy month in the library. We had various World Book Day events and two amazing author sessions. Let’s have a look 😊

World Book Day 2024

The library was very busy during the week of World Book Day. We had a book themed Scavenger Hunt, a Big Book Quiz and an Easter basket full of goodies that was raffled off to teachers. All of the events were organised and ran by our Senior Literacy Ambassadors. Congratulations go to them, they did an absolutely fantastic job 🥰

Winners of the scavenger hunt

Big Book Quiz

Easter Basket Winner

Author Visits

During March the library hosted not one but two fabulous author visits. The first author was Hiba Noor Khan talking about her book ‘Safiyyah’s War’

Hiba talking about Safiyyah’s War

Our second author visit was from Brian Conaghan talking about his book ‘Treacle Town’. Brian’s visit was part of the Library Young Team Project supported by the Scottish Library Improvement Fund.

Brian Conaghan talking about his book Treacle Town

February @ St. Andrew’s

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February was a great month at St. Andrew’s with some exciting news!

New Look

We have had a make-over! Our new shelving has arrived plus the walls received a much-needed lick of paint. We are still waiting on some new furniture arriving – at which point we will have our official grand re-opening! In the meantime, we have at least been able to welcome both classes and our lunchtime crowd back!

Brian Conaghan

On Tuesday 20th, we also welcomed Brian Conaghan to the school as part of our SLIF project with Renfrew Council. He chatted to our S3s about his life growing up in Coatbridge, his journey in becoming an author and also about his new book, Treacle Town.

March is shaping up to be even busier with two author visits, World Book Day, Woman’s History Month AND British Science Week all coming up!

Author Visit: Emmanuel Asuquo

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We were immensely privileged this week to host the brilliant Emmanuel Asuquo — one of the UK’s top financial advisers. He spoke to our S6 pupils on a variety of topics related to financial literacy, such as setting goals, maximising savings, and creating multiple streams of income.

Despite the seriousness of the topic, his talk was anything but dull — he regaled pupils and teachers alike with anecdotes from his personal life, taking every opportunity to make a joke and engage with his audience.

All around a brilliant opportunity and experience for staff and students; if you have an opportunity to work with Emmanuel, or pick up one of his books, don’t hesitate!

And stay tuned for his upcoming book on financial literacy for ages 8-12. I know I’ll be keeping an eye out!

Find out more about Emmanuel and his work on his personal website, and make sure to follow him on social media while you’re there!

December/January @ St. Andrew’s

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Happy new year from the librarian and library helpers!

After an excellent Christmas, 2024 looks like it will have a number of excellent things happening in and around the library. Today, we will give you a sneak peak of some of the many new books we have in before giving you some updates as well as our plans for February and beyond.

New Books!

Our new stock is coming in thick and fast! This month we have a number of excellent titles fresh out of the box, including these:

Refurb

The library refurb is officially underway! Unfortunately this means there will be disruptions to the library service over the next couple of weeks but we promise it’ll be worth it! We’ll be sure to throw a big party once it’s done…

Author Visits!

As of next month we will be welcoming a series of authors to come and talk to our S3s as part of a Scottish Government-funded project called Library Young Team! First up, we will be welcoming Brian Conaghan to the school on Tuesday 20th February.

Special guests at Holyrood

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We love having visitors to the School Library. In December, we welcomed poet Tawona Sithole who led a creative writing workshop for S1/S2, involving music, games, drama- with some amazing acting skills on show, and writing our own stories.

Our young writers were very inspired, and supported each other by listening attentively as each group read their story out to the audience. Everyone had a great time, and we hope to see Tawona for another visit sometime soon.

This event was supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund.

We continue to enjoy our Writing for Fun lunchtime club. Our new theme for January is poetry and we hope to write some poems about ‘things that make us happy’.

This week, Fiona Haddow from the Mitchell Library visited us to lead a Focus Group. We looked through a selection of books she had brought, and chatted about which authors we would most like to meet. Our young people felt very honoured to have this chance, as Fiona will use these opinions to help shape the programme for the ‘Wee Write’ Book Festival. This is a brilliant celebration of reading, where Glasgow Libraries brings authors directly into schools, and also holds events, including Family days, at the Mitchell Library.

Well done to our S2/S3 Focus Group. We really enjoyed speaking to Fiona, hearing about Wee Write, and everyone loved their thank you gifts of books.

Alex Nye visits Knightswood

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Last week we were thrilled to welcome award-winning author, Alex Nye, to Knightswood Secondary. This visit was, in part, to celebrate the tremendous achievement of the White Water Writers project participants in writing and editing their very own book.

Roughly 35 pupils were in attendance as Alex talked to them about what inspires her as a writer and what the writing/publishing process is like. The pupils were treated to loads of atmospheric music and images as a way to get their creativity flowing and to spark ideas for their own work.

A couple of readings from Alex and some good questions from the pupils rounded off what was truly the loveliest visit.

The visit was supported by the Scottish Government School Library Improvement Fund.

Ross Mackenzie at Riddrie Library

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On November 20th, a group of S1 pupils from Smithycroft Secondary School had the fantastic opportunity to stroll over to Riddrie Public Library to engage in a session with author Ross Mackenzie.

Ross is a captivating storyteller and kept the pupils group enthralled for the whole session by sharing the memories of how he became a reader and by transporting us into the magical worlds he created. When he unveiled the storyline of his book “The Colour of Hope”, and proceeded to read a chapter of this book out loud to us, we were on the edge of our seats, curious to hear what was coming next!

The element that made Ross Mackenzie into a reader was the excitement he felt when his P5 teacher would read “The Witches”, out loud to his classroom – a great testimony to the impact expressive storytelling can have on a young mind, flicking a switch that turns a child into an enthusiastic, curious reader.

The session continued with some creative writing inspired by “The Colour of Hope”, with Smithycroft pupils having a go at finding a story as to why a villain would steal colours from the world. Here are some of the explanations the participants came up with (click on image to open a large version in a new tab)!

At the end of the session, a Q&A allowed kids to ask Ross some questions – here are some of his answers to inspire everyone! When asked how to find what story to write next and how to find a story to write, Ross’ advice was to ask questions about the world, because questions help dig out stories; a beautiful metaphor likened this to “panning for gold”, a worthy nugget of gold might appear when sifting through all the questions and ideas travelling around the imaginative mind, so just give it a try!

The #Rood Reads Library Update

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For end of term, our Reading Schools Committee held a celebration event, and chose their highlights of the year:

Fatima, S3 loved the visit from Nadine Aisha Jassatt. Nadine read a poem from ‘Let Me Tell You This’ and told us about her brand-new book ‘The Stories Grandma Forgot’. We shared lots of different words in different World languages, and thought about how to use these in our own poems.

Mehreen, S3 has enjoyed writing about books and sharing book recommendations. Here’s our display to celebrate Eid.

Sam likes chilling out in the Library (me too!). The group has lots of fun together, like the Book Oscars at Easter time, and choosing a book from the rewards vending machine.

Everyone agreed that Zine Club, run by Ailbhe from Glasgow Zine Library was brilliant. “We loved the zine making”.

S1 enjoyed meeting Maisie Chan, and learning about the importance of diversity in books. This was part of the YA-ldi Glasgow Schools’ Book Awards.

the Duke of Edinburgh library volunteers did excellent work keeping the book displays up to date, and helping to run the library at lunchtimes.

International Women’s Day

12 of our young people wrote a novel together as part of the White Water Writers’ Project. An amazing achievement. We celebrated in style with a Book Launch party for parents, friends and teachers.

What a year! So much fun. Have a wonderful holiday, and join us for more reading adventures in August.