Tag Archives: literacy

Book Week Scotland

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.

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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.

 

Author Visit Alex Scarrow

Author Alex Scarrow

Author Alex Scarrow visited Calderhead High School on Friday, 13th September 2019 and spoke to  S1 pupils about his writing and treated them to a reading from the first book in his Time Rider series. 

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Alex then conducted a workshop with older pupils studying English and Media, and shared a fascinating insight into the structure of films, which can also be used for writing books and stories.

This  visit was part of North Lanarkshire Council’s Read to Succeed initiative, funded by the Scottish Attainment Challenge. This affords every S1 pupil, in all of the North Lanarkshire schools, an opportunity to attend an author event, where they hear about the author’s books and the inspiration behind their writing. Author visits inspire and encourage  pupils to read and to write creatively.  

Edinburgh International Book Festival Trip 2019

EIBF 19Pupils from the Higher and Advanced Higher English classes visited the Edinburgh International Book Festival at Charlotte Square in Edinburgh on 26th August.

Matt WesolowskiThe 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!

Mel Darbon and David OwenAfter 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.

Trip to Waterstones’ Book Store

Reward trip to WaterstonesWe 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.

After spending some time in the Harry Potter common room based in the store, the pupils enjoyed choosing a book to keep. This trip was part of North Lanarkshire Council’s ‘Read to Succeed’ initiative.

Comic Club runs in the library every Wednesday lunchtime from 12.45pm and everyone is welcome to join.

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Author Visit – John Young

Award-winning author, John Young visited Calderhead High School on 30 May 2019. John’s first novel, Farewell Tour of a Terminal Optimist, won the Scottish Teenage Book Prize earlier this year.

This novel tells the story of Connor and Skeates who make their way across Scotland to visit Connor’s father in HMP Shotts. We successfully applied to the First Minister’s Reading Challenge for funding to hold creative workshops with our S3 pupils and were delighted that John agreed to come along to the school to speak to our S3 pupils about his book.

John also held a creative writing workshop with Mrs Galloway’s S3 English class and discussed the writing process and his inspirations with them. The class are currently enjoying reading the book and at least one pupil remarked that it was the best book they have ever read! Special mention to Megan who could not resist reading ahead to find out what happened next but has promised not to give any spoilers.

Thanks must go to the First Minister’s Reading Challenge and the Scottish Book Trust for funding these events and to author John Young for his excellent talks.

BBC Scotland Young Reporter’s Day

BBC Young Reporters Day
BBC Young Reporters Day

For News Day (6th March) the Young Reporter team and BBC Scotland invited pupils from a handful of schools across Scotland to visit their iconic headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow and pupils from Calderhead High School were delighted to accept the invitation.

The pupils were taught some of the skills of being a reporter and got the opportunity to put these into practice. They learned the background mechanics – Emma demonstrated that she was a natural using the autocue! The pupils got a chance to interview each other in the radio recording rooms before filming an interview with Fraser Gillan, star of the new BBC Scotland flagship programme, ‘The Nine’.

They also met the team behind ‘The Social’ and were intrigued to see the ‘post-it’ notice board with ideas for current and future features.

After lunch, the pupils were delighted to film an interview with BBC Weatherman, Christopher Blanchett, and you can see Sahand and Shakira’s interview by clicking here.

The pupils then learned more about evaluating sources and discovering ‘fake news’.

The pupils had a fantastic day and learned much about being young reporters. They are looking forward to implementing all this at Calderhead’s Young Reporters’ Club.

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World Book Day 2019

Happy World Book Day!
Martin Stewart

We started our celebrations earlier this week when author Martin Stewart came into speak to our S2 pupils on Monday. Martin gave a great talk about how he became a writer and the inspiration for his books, before reading an extract from his latest novel, “The Sacrifice Box”.  This visit was part funded by the Scottish Book Trust as part of their Live Literature programme.

World Book Day 2019
World Book Day 2019

World Book Tokens are being distributed to all the pupils in the school and are available to uplift from the Library. Here are just some of the £1 World Book Day books you can ‘buy’ with your token, as well as using it to get £1 off a full price book.

We are also running a World Book Day competition. This year the prize will go to the funniest joke and the best book review about a funny book. The competition closes next Friday (Red Nose Day).

Harry Potter Book Night Party 2019

Harry Potter Party 19
Harry Potter Party 19

Calderhead High School’s Library was transformed into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy to celebrate Harry Potter Book Night and pupils enjoyed a myriad of Harry Potter related activities. Mrs Crosbie started the event with an excellent Potions class, where pupils tried some magic experiments including catching goblin eggs, creating goblin slime and catching a bothersome poltergeist. Pupils were then ‘sorted’ into their various Hogwarts houses and visited Ollivander’s wand shop where they created their own magic wands. As Chinese New Year had taken place earlier that week, we were delighted to welcome Catherine Lumsden, a former Tianjin scholar, who taught us spells in Mandarin and some useful phrases to use when meeting Chinese wizards and witches. We finished the event with a spell casting competition and Robert and Logyne were worthy winners. A great time was had by all.

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Christmas Books

S1 and S2 pupils were excited to receive a surprise early Christmas present this week – each pupil got their own book to keep.

At Calderhead High School, we are committed to promoting reading for pleasure and as well as celebrating reading throughout the year, we take part in initiatives such as the First Minister’s Reading Challenge.

We were delighted to be able to gift the books to the pupils and hope they enjoy reading them over the Christmas break.

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