Tag Archives: Glasgow

It’s the end of term and the library is unusually quiet due to the October holidays.  In Lochend, flying off the shelves just now is Vampire Diaries. It’s back on TV again, and lots of our students are possibly discovering it for the first time.  Full of page turning stories, the books tell of Elena and Stefan and their adventures, being teenage vampires and navigating their strange world – and their relationship !  Don’t go into a cemetery late at night like these teens did – it always ends badly !  Go on, read it for Hallowe’en !

Have you ever wondered what the library looks like when the pupils go on holiday?  Tidy I hear you say?!   There’s always lots to do, but looking at the library today, it’s splendid and we’re lucky to have such a good library space.  Stunning shelved fiction Here’s our very beautiful section – the fiction shelves – which are arranged by genre to help you find your next read more easily.   There are hundreds of books to choose from, and if you’re not sure what to pick the School Librarian will help you.   Thank you to the library assistants in schools who often help us tidy up.

 

Finding your way round the library space can be a bit daunting at first.  However as well as our fiction all arranged in one area, our non fiction books are just the same.  Spread over a series of shelves, our non-fiction books are arranged by the Dewey Decimal System, that’s how the numbers on the side of the books are arranged.  Dewey can seem a bit difficult at first, but don’t worry, that’s another thing the School Librarian can help you with.  If you want to learn more about the Dewey Decimal System – here’s a great site to help you out –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuRmTY4UJwQ

Non Fiction Display

Sometimes the best way to get to know the library is by simply walking round a few times and looking at things that catch your eye.  Today, I’ll leave you with a post of the seating area and the non-fiction area to give you a fuller view of our fantastic space.Spacious Seating Area

COME TO THE LIBRARY !   We look forward to seeing your soon !

Eastbank goes book bonkers

Welcome back to school Eastbank !  It has been a lonely library without you all.  Can you believe our library actually looks this big?  Isn’t it weird looking at it without any pupils in?

New Feature – Click the link.  In our blog posts now, if you click on any underlined text, you’ll be taken to some exciting new internet content.  This could be a book review or even an author’s page.  So there’s lots more for you to explore in the blog this year.

S1 Induction Time   It’s great to see all the new S1 pupils come into the library for the first time this month.  Everyone has now been given their library cards and can borrow books for the first time.  Remember, the library is free and you can borrow books for 2 weeks, or longer if you need more time to read the books you have.  But remember to bring them back !!  Stuck for an idea what to read?  Why not check out our display of new books?  This table is where you find a selection of new books covering all subjects.

Creation Corner

Don’t forget about the other activities you can do in the library.  Our creation corner has been very popular this month, with a gratitude rainbow, a brilliant Mickey Mouse drawing and a good few filled in word searches, I’ve been blown away with what you’re doing.  You could see your work here if you hand it in to Mrs Marshall !

New books to borrow 

On the new releases table, you can find the following books.  As a sneak peak, click on the links and you will be able to read all about them !  If you want a book, just ask the librarian who will be happy to reserve one for you.

Echostar is Always Listening  Definitely the creepiest of the new books, and a great read to set you up for Halloween in October !  It’s not ghosts and ghouls, it’s even scarier than that.  Ruby and her best friend have discovered a new AI tool which helps them get great grades at school.  But is that just too good to be true?  Read this Super Short story and find out….

EchoStar: Is Always Listening

The Final Year 

Matt Goodfellow has done it again with this book, he simply gets better and better.  Nathan is struggling at school, and trying his best to keep the few friends he has. The Final Year But what if your best friend starts doing things they shouldn’t really be doing?  And it’s serious.  Combined with trouble at home, the Final Year is a great read and one you can identify with concerning your first year at a new school.

 

 

 Unfamiliar  Unfamiliar What an amazing reader request has just come in to Eastbank.  The graphic novel of Unfamiliar and it’s follow up have arrived.  An adorable wee witch – Planchette – moves into a haunted house together with her familiar Marlow.  Not a problem for a witch you’d think !  But a bargain haunted house throws up some funny problems for the young witch and her familiar.  A cosy read about insiders, outsiders and all those in-between, there’s not much you can’t love about Unfamiliar.  Ask Mrs Marshall to reserve both copies if you want double the fun.

Author of the Month – Tom Palmer 

Our first author of the month for this term is Tom Palmer.  Tom writes amazing books on football, the Second World War and many other things.  His books are in our Super Shorts section, which means they are a great read with not so many pages.  Also they have yellow pages which means pupils with dyslexia challenges can read the words with more ease.  But everyone can borrow these books and they are amazing reads

 

April @ St. Andrew’s

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!

 

February @ St. Andrew’s

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!

Christmas @ St. Andrew’s

We hope everyone is looking forward to some well deserved time off over the Christmas Break! In the meantime, here is our display (complete with possibly the smallest Christmas tree in the school) of some of our Christmas and Winter-themed books to tide you over, all hand-picked by our library helpers:

Thanks to all the staff and pupils at St. Andrew’s who have continued to support the library and we hope to have an even better 2024 complete with a shiny new library!

September @ St. Andrew’s

We’re back for another school year and have lots of things to update everyone on!

Library move/refurb

After our move to English 4, we have moved again! This time to a much larger space. We are currently awaiting a full refurb of the library but once this is done, we look forward to bringing back our full programme of clubs and events – no less the Manga Club! Watch this space for updates.

S1 Inductions

September was a month for meeting and getting to know our new S1s. It was great having them down for their library inductions and there were a lot of keen readers amongst them.

ProQuest/GALE sessions

We are already underway with our research skills workshops as Advanced Higher Drama got their first ProQuest/GALE/Oxford DNB session of the year. We are hoping to continue this with both Social Subjects and English classes next month.

 

Next Month

October will see us continue with our class borrowing periods for all S1 to S3 pupils and work with S6 paired readers. As the new S1s get their iPads, we are looking to begin Libby/Borrowbox sessions to promote our online resources. October also marks Black History Month (UK) and we will have a pupil-curated display in the library to mark this.

Storytelling for Mental Health project/Book Week Scotland 2022

November was a very busy month in the library. Not only did we have Book Week Scotland, but we also had a trip to the Mitchell library and our Storytelling Group have also been busy!

 

Book Week Scotland/Metaphrog trip

Our theme for Book Week Scotland was ‘Scotland’s Stories’ so we decided the best thing to celebrate Scottish stories was to set up a literary map of Scotland! From the Borders to Shetland,  the Western Isles to Edinburgh, we displayed a wide range of stories set in Scotland.

 

 

 

 

We also took the opportunity to take some of our S1s to the Mitchell for a talk and exhibition by Glasgow-based comic artists Metaphrog. Everyone had a great morning and hopefully some budding comic book artists took some inspiration!

 

Storytelling Group

We also continued our weekly storytelling group this month. Over the last few weeks we had been working with Lego and some other crafty materials to create our own characters. Once we had done this, we then gave them a back story, including a habitat, likes/dislikes and even thought about any quests or antics they would get up to. There were some excellent creations with one of out pupils even drawing out a whole map of their characters’ world!

St. Andrew’s Wee Write trip!

Class 1.2 have been excellent users of the library this year. So to reward them, we thought we’d arrange for them to meet a real life author at the Wee Write festival in the Mitchell Library!

We went to a talk/workshop by writer Alex Malarky and, needless to say, everyone had a great time. We listened to Alex talk a bit about her book, including a short reading, and our young people even got the chance to create their own adventure story!

 

We’ve been a bit quiet recently due to exams going on in the library but please do return for more exciting updates!

LGBTQ+ History Month @ Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu!

Hi and welcome to our LGBTQ+ History special!

As you can see, we have displayed some excellent books which deal with LGBT themes or feature leading LGBT characters or protagonists. Some are more ‘obvious’ than others, but we hope there is something for everyone here!

Thanks to the LGBTQ+ group for their suggestions! There were some that even caught the librarian off-guard! We have put up some posters (see below) of some of their recommendations. If you can’t find them in the library, most are available on the Libby app (email gwmcgregormark@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk if you need more info on this!). We are always looking for more recommendations so please get in touch if you have any that haven’t been mentioned here.

The next update will be for World Book Day on March 3rd. We are hoping to have quizzes, giveaways and much more!

Bliadhna Mhath Ùr!

Welcome back to the Glasgow Gaelic School blog!

2022 will hopefully bring us an array of exciting events and updates to the library. We have been working with the Art department in adding a bit of colour and beauty to the library and have decided to use the space to showcase some pupil artwork. As you can see below, there are some excellent examples here:

We have also been working with the pupil-led school magazine, who have their weekly meeting in the library on Thursdays. There are lots of great things coming out of it and the young people are doing a great job of contributing and organising. If you are interested, please get in touch with me on gw19mcgregormark@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk and I will p ass this onto the magazine’s editor, Sophie (S6). Also, look out for the library segment for more updates and reading recommendations!

January 27th also marks Holocaust Memorial Day. A day on which we draw attention to and raise awareness of the Holocaust and all genocides across the world. We have set up a display of related books (below) which we will leave up for the next few weeks. Also, check out the Glasgow School Librarian eMag for further reading!

Next month will be LGBT History Month and we hope to bring you further news, recommendations and happenings in the library. See you then!