Tag Archives: Poetry

LGBT History Month at Eastbank Academy

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In February we’re all rainbow colours in the library as we mark the importance of LGBT History month.  We have a special display of both fiction and non-fiction books to highlight both historical and current topics in LGBT communities.   The school library here is a safe space for LGBT pupils, staff and indeed everyone who visits here.  There are always a variety of information books on offer if you have any questions about all matters LGBTQ+.  And remember, you don’t have to be LGBTQ+ to read the fiction titles we have, they’re great stories and often really inspirational.  Don’t forget Miss Cowie (English) runs the LGBTQ+ club too !


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St Roch’s Reads: January

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Prelims are in full swing and we’ve had lots of pupils in the library studying up. Best of luck everyone! What else has been happening in the library this month?

International Mother Language Day 

International Mother Language Day is celebrated every year on the 21st of February and the purpose of this day is to raise awareness of language, cultural diversity and multilingualism around the world.  Language helps to maintain the culture, heritage and history of a society, which is why it is so important to celebrate.  

There are books in many languages available in the library, including Arabic, Farsi, Kurdish, Polish, Portugeuse, Urdu, with lots of bilingual texts that include English translations. You can browse some of our top picks here and there’s plenty more available in the library.  

 

Cultural Diversity  celebration

Volunteers Iman, Amany, Roya, Rose and Kah Jun have been working hard to get ready for our Pop Up Library at St Roch’s Cultural Diversity Event in February. They have chosen and collected books representing authors/characters from all around the world. Lots of effort is going into decorating the library stand too- we can’t wait to see it on the day.  

 

Burns Night 

 

Every January 25th Scotland celebrates ‘Burns Night’, to mark the life and work of the poet Robert Burns. We’ve got lots of fiction books in the library that use poetry to tell a story. These verse-novels are a great way to get into poetry, using poems to tell dramatic stories of love, friendship, family, and lots more.

Check out our Poetree Display this month in the library, or browse our favourite verse novels on Padlet. Thanks to our first year story group for the creative decoration. The group practised black out poetry techniques, upcycling old pages into leafs.

 

Happy reading!

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.

We were very grateful to the Scottish Poetry Library this month for funding a poetry session for pupils with Julie McNeill.  Julie is a poet and non-fiction writer living in Glasgow. She has published two poetry collections: Something Small and Ragged Rainbows, she also co-wrote Mission Dyslexia, a non-fiction book for children and young people with dyslexia.  

Julie is the Poet-in-residence for St Mirren FC charitable trust and a huge football fan.

In the session with our S2 pupils she used football to explore emotion and self-expression. Pupils used a memory as a jumping off point to write their own poem. We were really impressed with the poems that were created, and well done to the pupils who willing to share their wonderful work. 

Huge thanks to Julie for visiting and for donating us a signed copy of We are Scottish football. You can borrow this and Mission dyslexia from the school library now.  

January in Castlemilk H.S. Library

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New year-and new librarian

Happy 2024!  My name is Ms Barron and I’m the new librarian in Castlemilk High School. I’m looking forward to meeting lots of new pupils getting to know everyone this year. I will be in school on Wednesdays and Fridays this term. You can visit the library during breaks and after school. 

Exams

January is prelim time and the library has been very busy with senior pupils doing exams. Good luck everyone! Did you know you can borrow SQA practice papers on your ipad? Search ‘SQA’ on the libby app to see what subjects are available. While the exams are on, there will be a mini mobile library visiting classrooms for pupils to borrow from. Visits will be back to normal in February.  

Burns Night

January 25th is Burns Night, celebrating Robert Burns and Scottish traditions with haggis, neeps, tatties and poetry. Why not join in the celebration of Scotland’s creativity and read a Scottish author in January? Check out this month’s burns Night collection, available now from Glasgow Libraries, for ideas.  

Not sure what to pick? You could try ‘A night out with Burns: ‘, a collection of Burn’s greatest poems that brings his timeless work to life.

If you a prefer a story to poetry, there’s also a nice selection of teen fiction on the list. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

When Mr Dog Bites by Brian Conaghan

Dylan Mint has Tourette’s. Being sixteen is hard enough, but Dylan’s life is a constant battle to keep the bad stuff in – the swearing, the tics, the howling dog that seems to escape whenever he gets stressed… But a routine visit to the hospital changes everything. Overhearing a hushed conversation between the doctor and his mother, Dylan discovers that he’s going to die next March. So he grants himself three parting wishes or ‘Cool Things To Do Before I Cack It’. But as Dylan sets out to make his wishes come true, he discovers that nothing – and no-one – is quite as he had previously supposed. 

The Gifted, the Talented and Me by William Sutcliffe

Fifteen-year-old Sam is not a famous vlogger, he’s never gone viral, and he doesn’t want to be the Next Big Thing. In fact he’s ordinary and proud of it.
None of which was a problem until Dad got rich and Mum made the whole family move to London. Now Sam’s off to the North London Academy for the Gifted and Talented, where everyone’s busy planning Hollywood domination or starting alt-metal psychedelica crossover bands. Sam knows he’ll never belong, even if he wanted to. And that’s before he ends up on stage wearing nothing but a fur onesie … 

Beyond the Wall by Tanya Landman & Tom Sanderson

The story of a runaway slave girl and her dangerous journey through the murky underworld of Roman Britain, by Carnegie Medal-winning author Tanya Landman.

Cassia does not fear to die, but for her – for a slave who has maimed her master – there are worse things than death. Yet the mighty Roman Empire has its limits. Beyond her master’s estate, beyond the river, far to the north stands Hadrian’s Wall. And beyond the wall? Freedom. With dogs on her trail and a bounty on her head the journey seems impossible. But then Cassia meets Marcus – slick, slippery, silver-tongued – a true and perfect son of Rome. And her only hope.

 All of these titles are available as eBooks on the Libby by Overdrive app. Click the book covers to find out more about each one. You can use your library card and PIN to add them to your account. 

Remember if you have any trouble using eBooks or other eResources you can visit your school library for help.

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.