Tag Archives: reading

Holyrood School Library, Summer update (3)

Visit from Emily Ilett

Summer term was very different from usual, with pupils and staff doing fantastic work in lockdown. Many pupils have been using Glasgow Life e-resources such as BorrowBox , for e-books and audio-books, and Freegal for music streaming. However, nothing can quite replace the fun of real author coming to visit you, so we decided to get help from the best of the best : Emily Ilett, award winning local author, in a remote LiveLit event supported by the Scottish Book Trust!

Emily had already been out to visit Holyrood pupils, and gave a brilliant talk to Miss Sutherland’s S1 class back in March for World Book Day

We learned about one of Emily’s favourite subjects – ‘Sea animals’, and how she used her love of animals and conservation as inspiration for her book ‘The Girl Who Lost Her Shadow’.

The challenge for our remote event in June was, with the school building closed, and no physical contact – how could we get Emily to the pupils, so we could have fun, hear all of her great tips for writing, and do a pupil Q & A? The answer was …..an author video, made especially for Holyrood pupils. In it Emily reads a wonderful short story ‘Hello Neighbour’ which she wrote for lockdown (it’s very funny, especially the bit about the wasps’ nest….you’ll have to listen and I bet it will make you laugh!). She also answered terrific questions from Zoya, Nga and Augustina; and set a competition for us. The competition is now closed for the summer, but we might open it again next term – so you could have a wee practice if you’re bored during the holidays!

You can watch Emily’s video here. Just scan the QR code with your I-pad. (Big thanks to Mrs. Gunn for explaining to me how to do this). See – everyone is learning new skills here – pupils/ teachers/ librarian. You never stop learning, and it’s exciting!

There was a tight deadline to get competition entries in by the end of term, many of you rose to the challenge with magnificent entries. Winners were : Ella S1, Laraib and Eseosa (S2), and Augustina (S3). Emily was highly impressed by the entries. Great work from everyone who entered. We may try to make the winning entries into a short story collection for you to read. In the meantime, you can read ‘Hello Neighbour’, and more short stories and poems in this fantastic anthology by Cranachan publishing:

Read ‘Stay at Home’ here

Great fun for pupils, and includes resources for teachers!

See how many authors you already recognise, and you will also discover new favourite authors to enjoy. We will (hopefully) have many new books in the Library by the time you return to school.

Holyrood School Library, Spring update (2)

Leave a reply

‘Book Group, and Christmas fun!’

Here at Holyrood, we love working with our friends at Glasgow Libraries. In November, we held the first meeting of our pupil Book Club at Govanhill Library. We were invited by Alison Nicol, our local Community Librarian, who hosted the visit as part of the ‘Hurricane Book Club’.

Before meeting up, our 15 pupils read ‘I am Thunder’ by Muhammad Khan.

We then enjoyed visiting Govanhill Library, discussing the book and taking part in a live Twitter session, linking up with other schools. Best of all was the friendly welcome and hospitality at Govanhill, where we were made to feel very welcome by Alison and the Govanhill Library staff (we loved our cosy Book Group area, and also, the chocolate biscuits) ! Since then we have held 2 further meetings : our Book Club Christmas Lunch, and also a catch-up session to decide on our next book.

After an exciting voting session, not 1 – but 2 titles were chosen!

‘One’ by Sarah Crossan
‘Love, Hate & other Filters’ by Samira Ahmed

Some of us are now reading these ‘under lockdown’ and we can’t wait to meet up again for more book chat in our friendly group. Huge thanks to Alison for organising this, and also to Ms Blackburn for being part of our Book Group, and helping us walk safely to Govanhill Library.

Leading up to Christmas we put our minds to some serious reading by taking part in Glasgow Libraries Christmas Reading Challenge. Christmas time can be very hectic in schools, with pupils taking part in many fun activities such as concerts, charity and fundraising events, and S4,5 & 6 also sitting their prelim exams. This is such an important time to stock up on books for the holidays. 60 of our S1 pupils completed the Challenge by borrowing 3 or more books during the last week of term, and collected a superb certificate designed by Glasgow Libraries.

“Your book is a friend… the library makes books easy to get”. Wise words from these lovely pupils.

Most of this borrowing was done at lunchtimes and intervals, and our wonderful English dept. also helped by allowing pupils to take the long distance route from class to the Library, avoiding the exams in the ‘street’ area. Nothing can stop our pupils from reading, and we also enjoyed the fresh air and exercise on route to the Library. Special mention must go to Miss Belton’s S2 English class, who have shown great dedication to regular reading during their library visits, working their way through comics, non-fiction and now enjoying authors such as Cathy Macphail and Elizabeth Laird. We all look forward to enjoying more Reading Challenge events in the future.

Find out more about Book Groups, and how to join your local library at

https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries

Holyrood School Library, Spring update (1)

Leave a reply

While we’re on an early spring break, it’s time to remember some of the fun things we’ve achieved this session. In November, during Book Week Scotland, we enjoyed a feast of activities including:

Ms Longo’s ‘Scavenger Hunt’ round the Library
a very well attended Lunchtime Book Quiz,
Visit from poet and Creative Writing Group leader – John Munro, who inspired pupils with great advice for getting started with writing.

John led 2 writing sessions, one for some lucky S1 classes in the Library. The other was for the whole S2 Year group! We had to take over the Fuel Zone, and John got everyone started with the topic ‘What would you put on your CV to get the job of a ninja warrior’. Much enthusiastic and very creative writing took place!

Throughout the week, Library helpers promoted our Prize Draw, which was enjoyed by everyone who borrowed, returned or renewed a book in the Library during Book Week Scotland.

We also highlighted some exciting pupil recommended titles including:

Robert Muchamore CHERUB series, and Taran Matharu ‘The Summoner’ series.

We look forward to Book Week Scotland in November 2020.

Useful websites :

https://www.scottishbooktrust.com

https://literacytrust.org.uk/

https://www.voluntaryarts.org/introducing-the-gorbals-writing-group

Pride month

2 Replies

Happy Pride month to everyone!

To celebrate, this month’s post will be about how the school LGBT+ club and the library have worked together to create a more inclusive space.

The first step was looking at a very inclusive library (and one of Ms Spaltro’s favourite): the Glasgow Women Library. In October Ms McMillan, the librarian and the LGBT+ club visited the GWL guided by the archivist, Nicola Maksymuik and one of the volunteers, May. We saw unique material and art works; but also discussed equality and respect. Very actual, isn’t it? A new hobby was also discovered: badge making! So loved by everyone that Ms McMillan bought a badge maker for our school as well.

This event – and a Glasgow school librarians training – has encouraged us to fill our library with rainbow flags labels. After a library assistants meeting, it was decided to stick a rainbow flag on the spine of every LGBT+ friendly book in the library, to help every reader to find books with LGBT+ themes. It took months to be ready, but the success was immediate. A handful of pupils from the LGBT+ club became our book reviewers: they have been in charge of reading the new books and identifying if they were LGBT+ friendly and suggesting them to the other pupils. Some titles? Giant Days by John Allison, Heartstopper by Alice Oseman and The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta.

February is the LGBT+ history month and has meant for our assistant lots of debates while they have prepared an amazing book display with a rainbow flag donated by the drama department. Not to forget the brilliant badges and informative material that the Creative Industries class has produced and distributed across the school.

The cherry on the top of the cake has been the brilliant event with Dean Atta thanks to the Wee Write! festival. Meanwhile the library team was working on a more inclusive space; Mr Beaton’s S2 class took part in Words that burn project (check the previous post) and Dean Atta was one of the authors involved. The librarian was so impressed that when the opportunity came up, Ms Spaltro wanted the pupils to meet him. Our LGBT+ readers made sure that every pupil who was going to take part in the event had read the Black Flamingo and prior to the event we chatted about the book for weeks. After having listened to the author’s presentation, we discussed coming out, families, integration and Drag Queens. It has been absolutely stunning to see the pupils so engaged and informed. So proud of them and thanks a lot to the Wee Write! Festival team and of course Dean Atta for inspiring us all.

What’s next?

Keep having these bookish conversations that encourage events and activities, keep hosting inspiring authors and support every library user to feel confident and welcome in the library. Last but not least, we are working hard to achieve a bronze LGBT+ chart for our school!

For the events pictures, please check our twitter account: @KsSchoolLibrary

Just Keep Reading

Leave a reply

Wednesday is when we would normally have our Book Club at JPA. The book club was created when pupils asked for a quiet place and time in a busy and hectic school day to just switch off, sit down and enjoy a good book. I think we can all agree that this is something we definitely still need in our day, especially in this difficult and stressful situation.

During Book Club we would talk about what we are reading, make demands of the librarian (me!) for what we would like to read, and of course: READ! With lockdown in place, we can’t meet up in the library at lunch time for now, but Book Club is not cancelled!

Join us on Twitter on Wednesdays for #VirtualBookClub – everyone is welcome! Staff, pupils, families and librarians alike can join in and talk about what they’re reading – I would love to hear what people are reading on lockdown, and listen to any recommendations for books.

(Psst! You can read this series at home through the eLibrary!)

You can also keep track of your reading at home to tell me all about it when schools reopen! All of my Book Club pupils will have their Reading Passports to do this in, but keep a record in any way you like to join in. You can also talk about what you’re reading and read together with the people at home. Start your own mini Book Clubs at home!

Feeling impatient? Want to read something right now and not wait? Have a look at the No Wait, No Problems collection of the Glasgow Libraries eLibrary – all the books here are available to read RIGHT NOW so you don’t have to wait! Some Book Club favourites are on this list, including Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, Big Nate comics by Lincoln Pierce and The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon. Just look for the orange banner at the top of the book cover to see if you can read it right away!

Of course, if you have something specific in mind, but it’s not available right now, you can reserve it for when it’s returned. Just select ‘Place a Hold’ on any books with the white ‘Wait List’ banner, like the Dog Man graphic novel – another much loved favourite in the library!

Can’t find what you want? Don’t worry – you can still demand the books you want! Just like your regular library, the eLibrary doesn’t have everything, but you can still ask for it! If you have something specific in mind but when you search for it, it says ‘Not Owned’ in a black banner at the top then you can recommend it to the Glasgow Librarians. For example, I know a few of our Book Club members have and definitely would recommend The School for Good and Evil series by Soman Chainani, and there were loads of requests for My Hero Academia throughout the year – get online and get recommending!

Standard Book Club rules apply at home as in school – read whatever you want! It doesn’t matter what format or genre, so long as you enjoy it! Prefer audiobooks or graphic novels? Excellent! Fantasy instead of Mystery? Brilliant! Try something new or stick to what you know, it’s up to you. Stop at least once a week, maybe even Wednesday lunch time, or join the Scottish BookTrust #readinglunch on Thursdays, and enjoy reading a book – and talk about it if you can. Just keep reading!

Fàilte gu Bloga Leabharlainn Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu!

Leave a reply

Welcome to the Glasgow Gaelic School library blog page! I will be using this blog to keep everyone up to date with the goings on with the library whilst we are in lock down and without a physical library (and beyond).

Firstly, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would like to draw everyone’s attention again to the Glasgow Libraries eLibrary feature which pupils can access using the number on the back of their library card and their PIN. I can provide both so please get in touch with me at gw19mcgregormark@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk if you need either. It is a great service and gives you access to a range of features including books, magazines, audiobooks and music. Here’s the link to the main page.

Secondly, the Glasgow School Librarians have gotten together and compiled a Lockdown Reading list for your enjoyment! There are some good reads in here for adults and young people alike. It can be found here.

Finally, I would like to take another opportunity to thank all of the pupils and staff at the school for making me feel most welcome in my first few months here and I hope we can continue to improve the library and its services into the next school year!

Book Week Scotland @ St. Andrew’s

Leave a reply

As Book Week Scotland comes to a close, my first as a school librarian, I can safely say that the week has been a great success and a lot of fun. All week we have been running a book swap station where staff and pupils have been encouraged to bring in old books in return for new ones. We also had a BWS Manga Club Special with the young people designing their own Manga book covers.

However, the highlight was definitely the Reading Lunch on Thursday, run along with our PT of Literacy. The turnout was excellent and it was great to see so many young people and staff come along with their books, ready to discuss them over a spot of lunch.