Stromness Academy Library

Once again, the cycle of the school year has led us to options times. In the next few weeks pupils in S2 – 5 will be selecting their subjects for the following year.

As part of this process, S2 visit the library on several occasions to do Some Careers Information Literacy Skills, be introduced to the small Careers Section and to finding relevant information on the internet (Primarily, My World of Work).

The first lesson is loosely based on The Reading Game.

Pupils are split into 5 or 6 small groups depending on the size of class and given a starting station where the choose one of the career areas on that table, then between them select what they think are the the jobs that fit into the area, personal qualities and skills that are key to the career, as well as what school subjects might me required. Pupils only get a short time (5-8mins max) to make their selections and write them down on there sheet. A whistle is blown, and each group moves on to another station. The time they have a t each station reduces as the lesson proceeds.

Once finished, pupils will have been exposed to a number of career categories, and this has also enabled them to think about their own skills and qualities that they are good at thus enabling them to make better options choices and helping in the future, to write job, college, university applications, personal statements and CVs

The Role Playing Games (RPG) activity in the school library at Stromness Academy has been running since 2003/4 or thereabouts. It started after a couple of pupils asked if they could run Dungeons & Dragons games in the library during Tuesday after school activities. Mrs Sinclair, Librarian, said “Yes” as she had played for he first time back in 1992 (two days before moving to Orkney and taking up her post at the Academy) and remembered enjoying that game.

The activity group back then consisted of four pupils and the Librarian, but grew to an average of seven players. Mrs Sinclair then offered Dungeons & Dragons as a Friday afternoon (part of the school timetable) activity. Over the years we have dabbled in other RPGs, including Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy RPG, Vampire the Masquerade, but the heart and soul of the group is still Dungeons and Dragons. We started in 3rd edition, moved forward t0 4e, and now play 5e, alongside a pupil running a Pathfinder RPG group. Games now run three times a week, Tuesday after school (1hr 10 mins), Thursday lunchtime – Luncheon & Dragons (30mins), and Friday activities (50 mins).

Resources (rule books, miniatures, map tiles, dice, etc.) for the group have mainly been supplied (loaned) by Mrs Sinclair, with core rule books being bought out of extra funding. Mrs S also spent many hours (and still does) of her own time planning and writing adventures for the group. However, in the last three years, the Friday activities group has grown from an average of 8 or 9 players three years ago, to a whopping 40 participants back in August, dropping to 33 in October, and now back up at 39 since the beginning of January. This is unprecedented and means that over 10% of the school roll participate in the RPG activity which for the time being is the biggest one in the school, surpassing the usual big take-up in the sporting activities. This meant that two Player’s Handbooks and single copies of the other core books just weren’t enough.

At the tale end of 2018, Michael Mordor, a professional miniature painter, (he had previously donated miniatures to the Monday mini painting club), with permission, put out a call via his Patreon Website and Twitter for donations of RPG materials for the school group. I wonder how many school libraries have such a well stocked RPG section?

The response was overwhelming with resources coming in from the UK, Europe and the US (as far as I know). We received Core rulebooks, modules, Xanathar’s and Volo’s, Dice galore, miniatures, dungeon tiles / maps, character sheet masters, DM screens.

Thank you to everyone who donated (Scroll down to bottom of page) (If I have missed you off the list, please let me know). Your support is very much appreciated by the pupils and myself. F.S.

National Poetry Day has now been celebrated in the school library since 2003 but it was in 2004, when the theme was ‘Food’, that the Poetry Picnic was born.

This annual poetry picnic took place in the school library at lunchtime on Thursday 4th October. Around 20 pupils and two members of staff  joined us for some snacks and some poetry readings which involved a poetry pairs game. This was enjoyed by all. Before the end of lunch a couple of folk read out their own choice of poems as well.

Thank you to the pupil volunteers who helped set up just before the event, and tidied up, washed cups, etc, afterwards.

Pupil Comments & suggestions:

Write a poem on a theme. This has been done in the past and will be considered for the future.

It was all great. Nothing could be done to make it better.

More drinks. This was a bring and share snacks event, so you could bring your own. 🙂

I liked it. I don’t think it should change.

You did nothing wrong and everything right.

Was fun! Maybe next year could write couplets and say them.

It was all great! I can’t think of anything to make it better.

Two competitions took place last session, based in the library.

Thirteen pupils took part in a Chess ladder with games mostly being played at Chess club on Tuesday lunchtimes. Zoe Hourston was the eventual winner of this competition. This was the first time the chess trophy had been played for in many years. A new chess ladder will run later this session once the lunchtime club is up and running.

Minitature Painting took place on Monday lunchtimes. Over a dozen pupils took part over the course of the year and six entered miniatures to a painting competition judged by professional miniature painter, Michael Mordor. Michael also produced video was produced of the entries from photographs taken by Mrs MacPherson.

The winner was Scott Stewart for his detailed horse. Joseph Moore had a special mention for his painting of camouflage on his little soldiers.

Miniature painting will restart in due course.

Welcome back as the cycle of the year continues into a new session and new term. Welcome to the new S1 who have hopefully now found their feet and are settled into secondary school life.

The summer holidays are now becoming but a distant memory as pupils and staff settle back into routine and the work well and truly begins.

The school library, which is as busy as ever, has undergone some change over the summer. The fading beige carpet of 30+years old, was replaced by a bright teal one (sure it was meant to be more turquoise) which has really lifted the library visually.

The hard work of emptying the library and setting it back up again was done by our janitors and in particular, Mr Ritch who was very organised and ensured everything went back in the right place. (I can’t thank him enough!) It is no easy task moving over 6000 books and other resources, as well as every bit of movable furniture, fixtures and fitting.

The layout is pretty much the same as before, but the magazine racks have been removed and will be re-purposed as notice boards as the plastic racks were brittle and cracking. One will go back in the lower library, with the other being put upstairs in a much reduced Careers Section.

The Upper Library has had most of the shelves dividing it removed, with a couple of bays being retained against a wall for university prospectuses and some careers books. It was decided to finally get rid of the job leaflets (and as such there are plenty of plastic file boxes available for re-use if pupils or departments want them) as much careers work is now done online via My World of Work. (Photo to follow once resources replaced)

Most S1 pupils have been issued with their library cards, as well as sitting the Accelerated Reader ‘Star Reading Test (despite internet issues) and they have begun borrowing books in earnest. S2 – 6 have been issued with ‘back-up’ barcode labels, via register teachers, to stick into their planners.

A handful of pupils come into the library before official opening time in the morning to ‘help’, by doing a few minutes of shelving and shelf tidying and more pupils would be welcome to do this. If pupils are interested in helping at other times or joining a more formal voluntary pupil library scheme

Formal lunchtime activities haven’t started up yet (except for ‘Luncheon & Dragons’ on Thursday), but library regulars are continuing to run their own D&D, MtG games, or board games. Most pupils who use the library at lunchtime are engaged with what they are doing, whether it is reading, schoolwork, leisure activities and it is great to see so many pupils from different year groups sharing the space and interacting with each other. It has to be pointed out, though that if pupils require computers for school work, they get priority over leisure use. The library is usually very busy at lunchtimes.

Friday activities! Well, the long running Dungeons & Dragons / RPG  activity has exploded in size. There are now 39 pupils taking part (over 10% of the school roll) playing Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and Starfinder role playing games, and Magic the Gathering. This means the whole of library space is being used. Thankfully, pupils are leading most of the groups, with Mrs S taking on the beginners D&D group. A couple of teachers also support this activity.

All S1 pupils visited the library today (Thurs 10th May) along with their English teachers and SfL assistant to work on the We are Writers project. This outcome of this project will be a book of writing (poetry, plays, stories, etc) which will be made available for sale. Proceeds will go towards the purchase of books chosen by the pupils themselves for the school library which will boost stock and support the reading programme S1 pupils follow.

One wouldn’t believe that nearly 60 pupils were working across the lower and upper library as they were all quietly focused on their writing and uploading it to the We are Writers website. Those who had finished went on to help with designing a cover for the book, thinking about a launch presentation, and helping with proofreading.

They will return to the library for another two periods next week to continue with this work.

Another round of library research started last week with S1 Geography classes starting out on their Environment projects (Environment Project leaflet). Classes are given 6 periods in the library to carry out their research. The first lesson consists of a reminder about planning their work and showing where the relevant resources are shelved or displayed, as well as the importance of noting down which resources they used for a bibliography.

Pupils may have chosen their topic already, or this is the lesson in which they can make their decision by looking at the resources available, and discussing their ideas with the Geography teacher of school librarian.

We encourage them to do some background reading prior to filling in a planning template, especially if they have chosen a topic the know little about. The template gets them to think about timescale for the project, keywords and key phrases which they can use for searching for information in books or on the

internet, and research questions to help them think about exactly what they want to find out. The template also allows pupils to record the resources they used for their research in preparation to prepare a bibliography at the end of their project.

The classes have all settled really well into their research and most pupils are independently carrying out their research. Help is on hand from their Geography teacher, school librarian, and Support for Learning assistant where needed.