Calderhead High School celebrated Book Week Scotland in style this year. This is an annual celebration of reading and this year the theme was “Blether”. Twenty S1 and S2 pupils were awarded tickets to the Blether Bistro in the Library on 21st November to reward their hard work and progress in class. They were treated to a cup of hot chocolate and biscuits while they enjoyed reading their books in the library.
Pupils also participated in a creative writing competition and there were many excellent entries – it was very difficult choosing the eventual winners. Congratulations to Ryan in S1 and Bailey in S2. Well done to our runners up, Macy and Chloe in S1 and Neve and Carla in S2.
There was also a Book Blether in the Library on 20th November at lunchtime, where everyone was asked to talk about their favourite book, and, inspired by the Scottish Book Trust’s twitter challenge, the book group created a book domino run in the library at lunchtime on Friday.
Pupils from the Higher and Advanced Higher English classes visited the Edinburgh International Book Festival at Charlotte Square in Edinburgh on 26th August.
The first session the pupils attended was a Creative Writing Workshop on writing crime novels with Matt Wesolowski. Matt started by asking the pupils to play a consequences game which they then crafted into some great crime stories!
After getting a chance to bask in the glorious sunshine, and browse the massive book store, pupils then enjoyed a talk by Mel Darbon, author of Rosie Loves Jack, and David Owen, author of All the Lonely People, who talked about the importance of creating empathy with their characters.
We are always keen to encourage reading for pleasure at Calderhead High School. As reward for their dedication and hard work throughout the year, pupils from Ms Faulds’ class and the Comic Book Club were treated to a reward trip to Waterstones in Glasgow.
Pupils from our Advanced Higher and Higher English classes visited the Edinburgh International Book Festival at Charlotte Square in Edinburgh recently. The pupils enjoyed listening to three very different authors at the Festival: Melvin Burgess, Taran Matharu and Martin Stewart
The first session was with the Melvin Burgess, an author who is often described as the “godfather” of Young Adult fiction. Melvin talked about his prolific and often controversial writing and read excerpts from his latest novel, ‘The Lost Witch’ .
After lunch, pupils listened to authors Taran Matharu and Martin Stewart, who talked about their writing. Taran started writing online and soon gained a massive readership which led to the publication of his ‘Summoner’ series.
However, we did manage to rearrange the ‘Book and Biccie’ lunchtime session in the school library and it was a lovely way to celebrate the joy of reading (and biscuits!) at the end of term.
Pupils were also invited to take part in a “Share a Story” competition by submitting a review of their favourite book and why they recommended that everyone should read it. There were many fabulous reviews and Mrs Lumsden and Ms Faulds struggled to decide the winner. However, they agreed that Kevin’s review of the Skulduggery Pleasant series should win first prize and Lauren and Jack were worthy runners up with their excellent reviews. Thank you to Mrs Galloway for presenting the prizes.