As part of the Wee Write! festival, we have had the pleasure to have Darren Simspon talking with a class of young people, lead by Mr Beaton.
Darren shared with us what inspires him, and what he would like his readers to take away from his books. It was so inspiring that our young people felt free to interview him for Swatch – the school librarians eMagazine.
Spring is in full swing this month and Glasgow schools have been busy bees. We started a new term, said goodbye to some senior pupils and this week we kicked off exam season. Well done to everyone for all the studying and best of luck!
There was also lots of things happening in the UK and beyond for St Roch’s library to join in.
April 2nd was World Autism Awareness Day, but did you know the whole of April is World Autism Month?
Books are a great way to raise awareness and help us to understand each other-so we’ve listed some books about or by people with autism that are available from the school library.
You’ll find some on display in school and on the Libby by Overdrive app.
Work Book Night is run by The Reading Agency and brings people from all backgrounds together for one reason – to inspire others to read more. You can do anything you want related to books: read alone, read with or to someone, or even call a friend to chat about books and share recommendations.
There are lots of great book suggestions listed this year with previous lists also available on their website. We collected some of the recommended books for a display in the library, to help students choose something new to read.
To celebrate the power of reading, libraries and good mental health, people are being asked to pledge SIX minutes on Wednesday 11th May 2022 and devote it to reading.
Why? Because taking some time for yourself to relax and do things you enjoy like reading is important to help look after your mental health and wellbeing.
Students in St Roch’s have signed up this month with their English class and will visit the library to join in the 6-minute-read on May 11th. We’re really looking forward to it!
It’s simple to pledge on the Keep the Heid website, and you can enter a prize draw for £100 book token. Young Scot card holders can also earn reward points for pledging! Take the pledge now and see how many minutes people all over Scotland will be reading for on 11th May 2022.
Lastly, the Wee Write book festival for children and young people runs this year from 25th –30th April. This year’s Wee Write Family Day is on Saturday 30 April and is jam-packed with exciting authors, illustrators and much more. Visit the Glasgow Life website to see what’s on.
As part of the Wee Write programme for schools, award-winning graphic novelists Metaphrog will be visiting St Roch’s this month. Their latest graphic novels are fairy tale adaptations including The Red Shoes and Other Tales, The Little Mermaid and Bluebeard: A Feminist Fairy Tale, all published by Papercutz. Sandra and John will be sharing their creative process and the secrets of making comics in what promises to be a very fun session- we can’t wait!!
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.
Some S2 EAL pupils had the chance to meet the talented comics creator Gary Chudleigh!
He gave them some tips on how to build a story premise and keys to write a comic script.
At the end of the session, despite being a sunny Friday last period, some pupils stayed back to have a wee chat with Gary. There is nothing better than watching pupils interact with an author.
He also talked about is last project, a new set of four comics, every story is a one-shot and self-contained, but each is connected and set in the same world.
You can help to make this collection a reality by showing your support and pre-ordering via kickstarter.
Hello!
March means World Book Day. This means holding great celebration in our school, here are some of things we did.
Our library assistants Jude and Abdul organised a super fun Book Quiz, that had a wonderful participation!
Only for the library assistants, Ms Spaltro organised a treasure hunt inspired and with the book character Wally. And here’s one for you, can you find Wally in this post?
At the event, we also announced the three library assistants of the month. They have been chosen because of their great commitment to the library, but also the support they have given to other library users. The three young people awarded have also been behind the scenes of many very successful events, such as Harry Potter Night etc.
Here’s the comment from Jack, one of the library assistants of the month about the whole celebration:
“We had a great time at the library. We played a fun game on blooket, we had a “Were’s Wally” hunt around the library and we all got to take a book or two home.”
As we believe that also teachers should be involved in World Book Day celebration, we organised a free book station for them, to get a copy of two wonderful CPD books.
These are only some of the different activities and displays we arranged around the school, please check out Twitter feed if you want to know more.
Happy Reading!
Hello!
This year our great Library Team will host a bookish event every month.
The fir
st planned was Hobbit Day Celebration on Wednesday, 22nd September.
Each library assistants has helped to make it a great success:
On the event day,in small teams we have solved Gollum’s riddles, looking for clues around the library, and completing a related crossword. We were very busy, but it was lovely to see so many young people adventuring in a new book genre, socializing and having fun.
Here are our event winners!
Do not worry, though, as we are already working on the next event!
