Tag Archives: Library competitions

October @ Holyrood Library

We’ve had a busy month so far, with plenty to celebrate in the Library.

October is Black History Month, so our S3 Duke of Edinburgh Volunteers -Tafsirr, Rand and Lauren created this fantastic book display.

They wanted to highlight books that were joyful and celebratory, so included biographies of famous actors, sportspeople, scientists, musicians and World leaders. And some history books, celebrating art and culture, but also remembering the sad and unjust parts of Black history in a respectful way.

In Holyrood, we feel that it’s very important to provide diverse and anti-racist books. So in a survey, when asked what they would like to see in the library, our Senior pupils made these suggestions :

A section focused on highlighting ethic minorities like biographies or books on cooking
More books in different languages, and also books to encourage people to learn more about other cultures
Scottish brown and black boys/girls everyday experiences
Maybe more history books on Scotland’s involvement in the slave trade.

Some of the books purchased so far:

Higher ESOL requests

Our readers are passionate about seeing voices of all different nationalities and cultures represented on the library shelves. Mrs Cooper’s Higher ESOL class asked for a selection of books by black authors for the classroom. Here are some of the authors they are currently enjoying: Malorie Blackman, Jumata Emill, Sharon Flake, Danielle Jawando, Shade Lapite, Jason Reynolds, Efua Traore, Alex Wheatle.

And we often like to discuss favourite authors and poets in our library Teams chat. We thought these words were very inspiring: “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive: and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humour, and some style”. Maya Angelou

At the start of October, we also celebrated Dyslexia Awareness Week with a pupil-led outreach library in the Fuel zone.

This showcased the books we have available in a dyslexia friendly format; and Mr. Lang provided a Quiz about famous people. We also had a Design Your Own Superpower competition, to show that all skills and talents are valued, such as super strength, invisibility, telekinesis, talking to animals, being kind, helping one another, and putting your rubbish in the bin. So many skills – what a talented bunch!

Well done everyone

Miss Kindness

Creative Writing @Holyrood

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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.

Book Group @Holyrood Secondary

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Logo by Hunnah & Fabia

‘Chapter Chats’ is our new pupil-led, super friendly Book Group for anyone who loves reading. Started by Fabia and Hunnah in S3, we meet in the Library after school on Mondays. Drop in for a quick and friendly book chat. Our meetings last for about 15 mins. ….. perfect if you’re rushing home to do your homework or make the dinner. Everyone is welcome, both young people and staff.

Some of the books we’ve been chatting about :

What I’m reading ……

‘Yellowface’ by R. F. Huang – an unusual and gripping plot line about a young author who will stop at nothing to succeed. Themes include cultural appropriation, addiction to social media, plagiarism and becoming so lost in a lie you even start to convince yourself!

Just discovered our young people are reading Rebecca Huang too:)

Sharing books at Chapter Chat group

Other events

We had great fun with Design a Book Token competition for World Book Day. These designs by Maha and Victoria won joint 1st prize for S1. All entries have also been sent away to the national competition. Well done everyone, fantastic work.

Special thanks to our brilliant S6 Khola, Claire & Fahima who decorated the display board, and presented prizes to all the winners at our lunchtime celebration. (Fahima is just out of photo as she’s chatting with and encouraging our S1 pupils).

S6 Guest helpers

A fond farewell to all our S6. Their contribution to library events, book groups, paired reading, artwork, general fun, kindness and laughter has been much valued. Exciting times ahead !

“If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” – Paulo Coelho

World Book Day at Holyrood

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For World Book Day, our focus was reading for pleasure. With so much fun to fit in, WBD became a Week, instead of a day! Young people and staff enjoyed sharing their love of reading. Here’s a round-up of some of the activities.

Book Reviews: Fabia & Hunnah in S3 are keen readers of new and trending fiction and popped in after school to chat about books.

“A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” is such a thrilling book! It’s about a high school girl named Pip who decides to investigate a murder case for a school project. As she delves deeper, she uncovers secrets and twists that keep you on the edge of your seat. The book is full of suspense and unexpected turns. It’s a real page-turner! If you enjoy mysteries, you’ll love this one! Fabia, S3

“The Inheritance Games” I loved this book there are so many puzzles for you to solve all throughout the book, not just in the writing, but all of the people are just as mysterious as their words. I found that the subtle romance subplots involving the four brothers were also intriguing because one of them is a 10 but so is his brother. Hunnah, S3

Chantelle, S6 always finds time for reading, even with a busy study schedule : For World Book Day, I recommend ‘A Song of Wraith and Ruin’ by Roseanne A. Brown. I rated this book five stars. It is a fast paced, action-packed story about two people who experience love, loss, betrayal and it is very bingeable! It honestly felt almost like watching a movie (I even bought my own copy after reading it).

Something I really liked was that the main characters are black. This is the first fantasy book I have ever seen to have a black main character, which as a black person myself, made me feel seen and recognised. I felt closer to the characters, especially Karina who bears the weight of expectation of everyone around her as she is the crown princess.

I loved that this book doesn’t portray black people as the negative stereotype seen in films, but instead portrays us as exactly what we are. Human. Chantelle, S6

Book Breakfast

Staff and Pupils joined together for a Book Breakfast before start of class, on World Book Day. We enjoyed croissants, fruit and snacks while chatting about what we’re reading. What a great way to start the day!

Throughout the day, a feast of activities was on offer, organised by our brilliant staff and young people all around the school, including a Book Swap table; Dressing up as your favourite book character (Mr. McGrath made an amazing Yarvi); a Drop Everything And Read session for the whole of S1-S3. And there were fun activities in English, including a Read around the World research task, and a Design a Book Token competition in the library.

‘Chosen By Us’ books

Our S2 Writers’ Group were given a budget of £100 to choose anti-racist, diverse books for the library. This was part of a School Library Improvement Fund project, continued from last year. So far the original group members have mentored a Writing Club for S1, written book reviews, poetry, and an article for eMag ‘Swatch’, and are now taking part in stock selection, while also welcoming some fantastic new members to the Group. The new ‘Chosen By Us’ section includes these superb authors : Onjali Rauf, A.M. Dassu, Sharna Jackson, Benjamin Zephaniah, Alice Walker. We also wanted to include some authors new to us such as Danielle Jawando, Faridah Abike Iyimide, and Clare Weze.

This is still a work in progress, and will take a bit of experimenting to get the labels in the right place to not hide the book covers! As American author Kwame Alexander says “All that is good and accomplished in this World takes work and a little chaos”.

We look forward to reading and chatting together about our new books.

Happy reading, and be kind to yourself this busy month!

End of term fun, Holyrood Library

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The holidays are coming – time to celebrate the work of our amazing Library volunteers before we head off for a well-earned rest. They’ve worked tirelessly to promote reading and make the library a friendly and welcoming place. Whatever you need, the library helpers will be there for you!

Senior helper evaluating books to keep

R. in S5 has used her I.T skills to master the library management system (Spark) and now adds in new stock, can search the catalogue, identifies old books to be weeded and comes up with excellent ideas inspired by her love of reading.

Surrounded by books

S6 pupil book recommendations

C. in S6 shares book recommendations, is always up to date with new releases, and is a life-long lover of books. She balances this with a busy S6 schedule, often studying in the library after school.

Our Duke of Edinburgh S3 Volunteers bring fun to our lunchtimes. S1 loved their design a Christmas Tree, & Elf Hat activities. It’s been a privilege to see a special bond grow between S1 and S3. So far 120 pupils in S1 have completed the Christmas Reading Challenge, run in collaboration with Community Libraries.

Lunchtime competition for S1

S1 Helpers at work

S1 Helpers also do a great job, running the issue desk at intervals and lunchtimes, coming up with games & colouring in, and encouraging everyone to borrow books.

S1 pupils enjoyed our special writing competition for Book Week Scotland. This competition was pupil led and inspired by award winning author Lindsay Littleson’s book EuroSpies. The mission was: “Write a job application to become a Spy” Some great entries. Lindsay thought they would definitely get the job!

A last thought as we’re doing our Christmas shopping – good to consider how important books are not only for enjoyment but also for wellbeing and achievement. Research by the Scottish Book Trust explains that “access to books at a young age allows children to flourish” and “Reading for pleasure is the biggest indicator of a child’s future success” https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/articles/the-importance-of-book-ownership

Here’s a lovely personal memory shared by one of our sixth year pupils, about the importance of books.

Well done everyone and Happy Christmas !

Holyrood Library – Summer Roundup

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Summer term has been a feast of reading and fun!

In May, we took part in ‘Keep the Heid and Read’, celebrating how reading for pleasure can improve mental health.

“Fiction books are great if you want to step away from social media for a while”. This is great advice from Mehek (S6)

In June, we celebrated Empathy Day. We chatted about how reading can take you to other worlds, and let you walk in someone else’s shoes. We selected our favourite books for Empathy and made a colourful display.

Lunchtime Reading We were delighted to win 10 copies of Rebel Skies by Ann Sei Lin. We hope to read and review this book together. Happy to share our spare copies!

“One girl against an Empire”

Our English dept. organised a whole school Literacy Day for S2, The mission was to solve the crime of the missing Stone of Destiny, which involved investigating and forensic science, using expertise from depts. across the school.

In the library, we created a display of detective fiction and criminology books.

We also researched the Stone of destiny and designed Wanted posters to help find it!

Zines : Mr. Kelly and Miss Johnston’s S2 classes created amazing zines in Science and made a display for readers to help themselves.

Bookmarks : Mumina and Abdul made these beautiful bookmarks as gifts to take away.

We were excited to win a copy of Hag Storm by Victoria Williamson (at a book auction to raise funds for Malawi). Great inspiration for a competition! Over 30 pupils entered ‘Name the Haggis’. The winning entry was Hector the Horse=Riding Haggis, inspired by the Tam O’Shanter theme in Victoria’s novel.

To round off the year, Holyrood was awarded Silver accreditation as a Reading School. Superb recognition of the work of our Reading Schools Committee, and all pupils and staff who promote a reading culture in the school, The library has been glowing with all the pupil care and nurturing. Congratulations to everyone, and thank you to Ms Longo for making it so much fun to work on this project with a brilliant team.

Have a great Summer everyone, and keep reading!

Holyrood Library, Spring Update

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Welcome to the Library blog for March and April !

Our Rights Respecting School book display showcases books on diversity, inclusion and well-being. This display was organised by one of our S6 Volunteers, who has also worked on cataloguing hundreds of books this year, a great example of our Pupil Voice and Caritas volunteering in action, thank you.

World Book Day : our S1 ‘Design a Book Token’ competition was a great success. The entries were superb, showing both a love of reading and excellent design skills. Our prize-winners enjoyed a lunchtime celebration. Special thanks to Head Girl, Maryam for presenting prizes and giving an inspiring speech to S1.

Our S3 lunchtime readers have been busy creating beautiful art, including flowers and bees to decorate our Science week Display, and bookmarks for Miss Melville’s wonderful Coffee Morning for Ukraine

We love sharing book reviews and recommendations

We even get replies from fantastic authors! “I’m so happy that Boy 87 was your book of the day. Thank you S1 helpers!”, Ele Fountain, author of Boy 87

Here is the Numeracy Wall created by Miss Blackburn’s Sumdog Club. We look forward to holding more numeracy activities in the library throughout the year.

Our S6 contribution to the library has been immense. Their helpfulness and enthusiasm, has made the library a joyful place. Thank you S6 for the Book-Tok idea, now under-way. I will continue to add new titles. Special thanks to Aaminah.

Our S6 held an amazing Culture Day in the Assembly Hall. Seeing the joy and pride in our wonderful, diverse Holyrood community has inspired me to look out for more diverse books by indigenous authors in future.

Some S1 recommendations showing different cultures, (these are set in Nigeria, and the Himalayas).

Thanks also to S6 for completing the online Library Survey, all your helpful suggestions will go towards making improvements for the coming year.

This lovely manga style drawing, (by Kieran and Demi), sums up our ethos – Everyone is WELCOME in this Library, so please DO look in and say hello next time you are passing. A warm welcome awaits.

March in St Roch’s: World Book Day

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World Book Day is a celebration of reading, authors, illustrators and books which happens in March every year. This year was a particularly special one because it marked 25 years of World Book Day! In St Roch’s, pupils were all given a token which they could use to claim a free book in places like Waterstones, Tesco & Sainsbury’s. There were lots of great books to choose from this year and we were delighted to get some copies for the library.

This year we celebrated World Book Day’s 25th anniversary with lots of library activities. There was a book display with previous WBD books, featured authors and recommendations. S1 and S2 English classes visited the library with their iPads to take part in WBD quiz sessions. We had great fun playing games on Blooket, with questions on Harry Potter, Roald Dahl, Wimpy Kid and lots more. The quiz sets are available online, just click on the one you’d like to play above.

Manga and comics are very popular in St Roch’s, so there was a special lunchtime quiz for all the fans. It was an impressive display of knowledge from everyone, but we had two stand out winners. Well done Louie and Ivy!

During March pupils also took part in the library’s World Book Day Bookopoly reading challenge. Pupils read books to complete a genre on the board and get a prize draw entry. Some brave students went the extra mile and got entries for doing reading dares as well.

Finally, Ms Nimmo’s S1 class created some beautiful poems about nature to display in the library during March. The poems were also made into a class ebook that everyone can enjoy.

All in all it a was a great month of World Book Day celebrations. Looking forward now to next month’s Wee Write festival and some fantastic author events in schools across Glasgow!

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.

What will be book festivities without any competitions?!

We had two exciting competitions running that week:

The book cover competition designed by some of our Higher and S3 Elective young people in partnership with the Art department.

Here are the three winners:

The bookface competition with very creative S3 pupils.

Here are some fantastic entries:

And finally at lunch, the library “display committee” had the responsibility to count the votes for the Scottish Teen Book prize.

They really embraced the task!

World book day(s!) was a huge success at St Mungo’s with more than 500 tokens given away to actual and potential readers!

Holyrood Library – Spring update

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We started our Library Teams page in February to keep in touch and share book chat. All activities were organised or led by S1-3 pupils. What a fantastic time we’ve had! Thank you to everyone in our Team, both for contributing, and reading along during lockdown. Hope you all had fun!

Competitions

Our first competition, created by Zara, was ‘Create your own Character’. Our prizewinning entries came from Rose K. & Sahar (S1), and Brenna (S2).

Rose (S1)

We loved the skill shown in Rose’s drawing and how the character matched the description.

Sahar (S1)

Sahar: An excellent character and description, great imagination in choosing to make the character a villain!

Brenna (S2)

Fantastic use of description and colour in Brenna’s drawing to bring this character to life.

Our next competition idea came from Rose ‘Tell your favourite story with a Twist’. Cillian used his knowledge of Tom Gates, to come up with an alternative ending, involving Tom’s mum.

We also enjoyed making Origami bookmarks . So impressed by B. M’s bookmark:

As we’ve all been doing more cooking during lockdown, we started looking at Recipe Books.

Eman, Anna and Bilal came up with some brilliant ideas for recipes, I enjoyed trying out these ideas for a Toasted sandwich , Feta Pasta bake and Ms Longo made this great find of an easy to make version of Gulab jamun (I’ve still to try this – it looks wonderful)!

Next we shared our Favourite books. Here are some of the titles that Anna, Zara, & Abdul recommend.

Harry Potter, the Faraway Tree and Dork diaries and Percy Jackson series are also firm favourites.

Anna’s Quiz was a highlight and kept us entertained throughout an entire day. There was much discussion and we had fun trying to come up with our answers. What a brilliant quizmaster! Bilal edged a win, closely followed by Rose, Zara (and Ms Longo and I did pretty well too I’m pleased to say)! Everyone was very sporting in providing clues and congratulating one another.

Our last activity before the holiday break was ‘Re-create your favourite Book Cover’, Eman drew this stunning mosaic style version of ‘The Girl who Lost her Shadow’, which got a lovely comment from author Emily Ilett.

Thank you to Ms Longo for the wonderful video to help us access Glasgow Libraries eBooks.

https://video.link/w/CUfhc

I now can’t wait to chat to all our team members in person to say a huge well done for all your work.

Also, a big thank you to our wonderful S3 Duke of Edinburgh pupils Laraib and Fiza who helped set up the Team and continued to add advice and ideas all the way through; and thank you also to Sarah, Miya, Nida and Chantelle. We wish you every success in completing your Duke of Edinburgh challenges.

Other activities Jan – March

The Library was used as one of the Hubs for our KW pupils. It was lovely to meet colleagues from other depts. and also to see the library resources still being used for research. Our helpful pupils also took an occasional break from classwork to help me unpack and review the new books.

They also decorated our Staff CLPL Library. What wonderful artwork! We wanted to make the most of the fantastic books ordered by Miss Callan, so we made bookmarks for our teachers. Thank you Jodie for printing the bookmark templates.

We enjoyed some Easter craft activities on the last day of term.

Look forward to seeing everyone back in the Library soon. Remember : face coverings, clean hands and surfaces, and keep a good distance so that we can all stay safe!