This year’s World Book Day was celebrated on Thursday 3rd March. At lunchtime there was an informal gathering where we ate snacks, had hot chocolate and discussed books, as well as reading extracts. We also had an author / title pairs game.
Records show that 14 pupils signed in to the event, although there were more about who didn’t sign the attendance sheet.
Pupils visiting the library during WBD and in the following week are will be requested to fill in a mini survey indicating their favourite books, and authors. Surveys such as these are useful for gauging current reading trends and enabling more informed book purchase decisions to be made.
Stromness Books & Prints once again allowed me to raid their shelves for some books to sell at our Peedie Book Fair as well as some WBD bunting. A small number were purchased.
WBD Book tokens were issued and could be exchange for the free £1 books available in the library as part of the Peedie Book Fair. A small number of £1 books are still available, as are book tokens if any pupil has yet to receive one.
Running up to the end of term, there is a National Book Token design competition. Pupils are encouraged to take part and design an image for National Book Tokens which will be used on the token cards. Official templates and entry forms are available from the library or can be found here.
A winner will be decided in school – Easter Egg and house points for prizes. All entries will then be forwarded to the national competition.
Comments
Enjoyable. PR
The matching thing was kinda fun. HR
It was a good event. Nothing to improve! JC
Very good. KC
Very good. JL
Enjoyable as always. Perhaps we should encourage the students more to bring in and read [from]their own books too. MB
On Thursday 25th February we welcomed local illustrator. Tony O’Donnell. He is probably best know for his work for Ivy the Terrible in The Beano in the mid 2000s (he has signed our library copies). He has also illustrated football stories, done some Sci-fi work and worked on Marvel’s Ghostbusters.
Locally, he does private commissions and freelance work – illustrations, artwork, logos and caricatures, as well as teaching community evening classes and, of course, coming in to our school to run a workshop. He was last here in 2011. He also has run a local youth club and will be running a youth Judo club in the near future.
Over the course of the split lunch around 20 pupils and one member of staff had a chance to have a look at some of Tony’s own work which showed us the variety of work he has done and thus is able to do. He also demonstrated how to draw Ivy the Terrible and a ‘superhero’ face. Pupils were also able to bring their lunch in with them and tea, coffee and hot chocolate and a tasty treat were provided. This event loosely tied-in with the Stan Lee Excelsior Award for Graphic Novels, judged by young people. This year we have about ten pupils shadowing the award, who are rapidly making their way through the books. Most of these pupils took part in the workshop.
We would like to thank Tony for giving up some of his time to share his skills and knowledge.
It has been some time since the last post here. January has been and gone and we are already in February. A lot of things have been going on in the library as shown below (in no particular order).
Activities: Dungeons & Dragons – The increasingly popular D&D activity on Tuesday after school and Friday afternoons continues. On Tuesdays, a small group of 5-6 pupils meets to play a game run by myself. We are using the 5th edition Starter set running The Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure. It is proving quite taxing for the pupils’ characters at times. Just a pity we only have 50 minutes to play it in.
On Friday afternoons, there are three D&D groups run by pupils. This gives me a chance to play for a change, in a slightly steampunk game designed and run by a second year pupil. This game also is a bit of a hybrid between 4e and 5e which is working fairly well. Our characters are running from an army and have now found themselves in a cave system to get through the mountains. We were last seen to be trying to deal with a horde of goblins and a sleepy troll cuddling a chicken – don’t ask!
Lunchtimes – The library continues to be a busy place with anywhere between half a dozen and 30 pupils visiting, depending on time, over the course of the split lunch. Computers are well used, mostly for leisure use, but work will always get priority. Some folks come in to read and / or chat quietly which in most cases is acceptable, but when noise levels rise words will be said.
It is important that food and drink are NOT brought into the library. This Librarian was rather put out on the weather closure last Friday – tidying a very messy fiction section is tedious enough but to find stale, hard, mouldy bread and empty bottles of milk shake behind the books was beyond a joke.
Tidying in progress. The books on the floor indicate how much has been randomly shelved and needing put in the right section, let alone those just dumped at the end of shelves. Please help to keep everything tidy.
More words will be said about this. Both the Junior and Senior Fiction sections have now bee given a good tidy and I would hope that library users respect this and take responsibility for helping to keep everything tidy and food free.
The trading card game, Magic the Gathering, continues to be very popular as a self-directed lunchtime activity and I am not averse to a game or two myself. MtG is also a popular Friday afternoon activity. A couple of other table top games have also been tried – Necromunda and another, whose name currently escapes me. Warhammer occasionally features too.
Lessons – January was fairly quiet in terms of class bookings with the English department library periods being the only ones. In mid-February S2 PSE will have five weeks in here doing Careers Information Literacy Skills prior to their S3 subject choice. Planning meetings, emails and discussions have already taken place and the tricky logistics appear to have been worked out – time will tell.
Last term, S1 pupils submitted ‘alternative book reviews’ as part of the Library & Information Literacy Skills course. They could do whatever they wanted, whether it was a poster, mobile, model or game as long as it wasn’t a traditional written review. Their imagination was the only limit. A great selection of ideas was produced. Pupils, in library period, spoke about what they did and about the book. The work was displayed in the English corridor and now some is in the library.
Recently S1 and S2 pupils, during library periods, were given the opportunity to browse catalogues, leaflets and the excellent Teen Titles magazine and make some selections for the library. This gives them an opportunity to get involved in stock choices. Budget constraints do mean that not everyone’s suggestions can be acted upon, but at least they can go on a wishlist.
Careers Resources – We are expecting a delivery of new careers books any day now (weather and boats (or planes) permitting). Back in November / December an offer of free books was flagged up on School Librarians’ Network and I looked into it. In this economic climate, this was too good an offer to miss so a number of books on different careers were ordered. Parents or pupils interested in getting their own copies can find a list of resources available here: How2Become. The website itself could also offer useful careers and choice information. More information on these books will be provided in due course, when they arrive in school.
Links to careers websites and LiveBinders are available in the LibLinks section of the blog.
Stan Lee Excelsior Award for Graphic Novels & Manga – At the time of writing the eight graphic novels on the 2016 shortlist should be winging their way to Orkney, having been delayed by lack of stock. This is frustrating as the order was placed just before Christmas and we have now lost a month of reading the books and shadowing this award. The display is nearly read and just awaiting the addition of the books. Pupils are invited to come along to a meeting on Thursday so that we can get the shadowing of this award started – books or no books! We have also ordered the five books of the Junior Award, even though we are not eligible to shadow that. They will make a good addition to our growing collection of Graphic Novels.
Online Resources – We have continued to subscribe to Complete Issues. This potentially useful resource has been under used despite termly reminders to staff and pupils. The subscription will be reviewed at the next renewal, but please do look at it in the meantime as it is potentially a very good resource for current and moral issues for discursive essay, etc. Further information can be found here. Username and password is available from the library.
Well, December is here and we are on the count down to the end of term. Not sure where the last few weeks have gone. The library has been very busy with the usual run of English library periods and research projects in History (Ancient Civilisations), Geography (Extreme Weather / Japan) and RMPS (World Religions) – see below for new LiveBinders. It has been ‘fun’ trying to timetable classes into the library as a number of the subjects clash but with a bit of juggling and the use of the upper library we have managed to accommodate most.
Subject Links
Two new Livebinders linking to topics being researched have recently been created. These can be found in the LibLinks – Subject Links section of the blog or directly, following the links below:
Back in October, if you remember, we had National Poetry Day. As part of that we ran a competition on the theme of ‘Light’. There were over fifty entries which had to be read, long listed, short listed and even shorter shortlisted. There was some really good work. It has taken time to decide on winners but they have been decided upon and the winning entries are are now on display in the library. They are as follows:
1st L Hales; 2nd M Linklater; 3rd K Loveridge
Highly Commended:J Leitch; S Foubister; N Sutherland; L Sinclair; K Wood; M Nicholson; J Muir; A Foubister; E Moar; J McElroy
Commended: JCrichton; G Isbister; A Pearson; H Kenyon; K Clark; C Wilson; G Mayes; A Towrie; Smith
World Book Day Award
Earlier this year the inaugural World Book Day Award was held. Schools were asked to respond to the phrase ‘Why we can’t live without books’. Although not successful, the library did receive some free books from James Patterson, author of children’s’ and young adult books. You can view the entry here: WoBod Entry Stromness Academy.
The second WoBod was launched recently (much earlier than last session) so once again pupils were asked to contribute to this. This time the question was ‘Where does your reading take you?’ Pupils responded by writing poems or other text, producing posters, a collage, a piece of origami and an advent calendar house where the windows opened to show various small pictures. The best were collated into a Prezi presentation and forwarded to the award organisers. This presentation isn’t yet available for general viewing and won’t be until judging and winners announcement on World Book Day next March. Meanwhile, some of the work produced is on display in the library.
Our annual storytelling even took place on Friday 30th October at lunchtime. The library was suitably decorated and around 30 pupils and two staff joined us over the course of lunch for some ghost stories, either read from a book or folk told their own tales.
A new term starts on Monday, so to tie- in with this there are now a number of new books on display.
Donated by Martin Brown, Illustrator
Spooky Happenings – Storytelling
The annual storytelling session that is Spooky Happenings will take place at lunchtime on Friday the 30th October in the Reading Zone of the library. Come along and tell us your spookiest ghost story.
Thursday 8th October was National Poetry Day which was celebrated country wide judging by the high media (radio & television) and even higher social media presence. Once again we celebrate poetry in the form of our annual poetry picnic which has been going since 2003/4.
This years theme was Light which gave an excuse for putting up some festive lights (not quite the right season for them yet), getting the candles out (battery operated, of course), and playing with torches, prisms and lasers (carefully). Much fun was had by all, none the least Mrs Sinclair, the Librarian who was much amused by her purchase of remote control candles, let alone experimenting with passing light through prisms, faceted glass balls and water bottles. We must than Mr McCaig, our science technician, for putting a tray of stuff together at the last minute as well as providing a fibre optic light.
We also read out some poetry for the poetry postcards from The Scottish Poetry Society as well as doing the tongue twister game – everyone in sequence reads a tongue twister. If they stumble over words or get it wrong, they drop out.
In the run up to the day, all S1 and S2 pupils did some poetry writing during the library / literacy periods. They were asked to have a look at some art work and write a few lines of poetry based on the image – what it portrayed? How it made them feel?
Some pupils then entered these for the poetry competition, with the closing date of Friday 30th October.
Poetry postcards were also delivered to classes during periods 1 and 2 with the teacher reading out the poem to their class. This was a way of bringing poetry to a wider audience as well as trying to get the whole school involved.
Some comments:
It looked like a medieval meeting but fun!
I like how you did the tongue twister game.
It was fun and exciting.
It was great.
I quite liked the ambiance.
A wonderful, cosy event. It was over too soon! Not much you can do to address that problem in a lunch break.
I think it was really fun, good, and interesting. I loved all the lasers. They were so pretty.
Participants were also asked for ideas for improvement and of those that commented on this, most that the event was “good as it is” and another suggested having a quiz. Now there’s an idea to think of.
All in all it was a very successful event with the pupils and staff who attended appearing to enjoy it. Acknowledgments must got to all attendees, the staff who read out poems to their classes periods 1 & 2, and the pupils who helped, whether it was delivering the poetry postcards or helping with photographs and tidying up afterwards. Without you, these events would be more difficult to pull off.
Late last week I went to empty my pigeon-hole to find a large package in it. There and then I tore (it was well sealed) it open to discover three books on cartooning. Initially I though they were unsolicited but on reading the accompanying letter I discovered they were a gift from Martin Brown (illustrator of Horrible Histories) via The Scottish Book Trust. I was absolutely delighted to receive this gift. The letter from The Scottish Book Trust states:
Martin had an absolutely brilliant time meeting pupils in Orkney and Shetland and was overwhelmed by the warm welcome and enthusiasm which greeted him at every school.
As a thank you, and to continue the drawing craze in Orkney and Shetland, Martin would like to gift your school a set of books about drawing and cartooning to add to the library. We hope that your pupils will treasure these books and that they will further inspire your young illustrators to get drawing!
Back in May, he visited Stromness Academy and other schools in Orkney and Shetland as part of the Scottish Friendly Children Book Tour. Stromness Primary School pupils also joined us for this event in the theatre.
Thank you Martin and The Scottish Book Trust for this wonderful addition to our library.
Thursday 8th October, yep! – that is next week and the second last day of term. “Yipee!”, I hear you say. So, next Thursday sees us returning to our annual celebration of poetry with the return to the tried and tested Poetry Picnic format. It will be held in the school library at lunchtime (12:25 – 1:30pm). Snacks, tea and coffee will be available (for small donation towards costs) as well as general banter about poetry on this year’s theme of ‘Light‘ (and maybe just general banter) in celebration of National Poetry Day.
What can you look forward to?
Sharing Poetry – Poetry postcard deliveries will take place during periods 1 – 3 next Thursday 8th October. Where teachers will ‘drop everything and read’ poems from this year’s (or previous years poetry postcards) if convenient, otherwise the poem will be read out at the end of the lesson. We will require some S6 volunteers to help deliver these cards.
Poetry Competition – Write a poem on the theme of ‘Light’. Poem can be based on your own thoughts, feelings, etc. on ‘light’ or use one of the paintings on display in the library and write a poetic response to it. Staff and pupils can enter.
Poetry & Plagiarism – As part of the introduction to the poetry competition, S2 pupils have been given a chance in English Library / Literacy periods to start to consider writing a poem about ‘Light’. Pupils respond to a painting which has clever use of light or has a title with ‘light’ in it. They write 5-6 lines of poetry.
They are then asked to swap their work with someone else. The pupils then writes their name on the piece of work they got. Pupils head off to do 10-15 minutes of personal reading whilst the teacher and librarian go round and look at the poetry giving out up to 3 stamps each for work which shows promise or is looking good… based on initial impressions. Those with the most stamps get a peedie prize (sweetie).
The outcry is tangible as pupils are getting ‘rewards’ for something they didn’t write. We then have a short discussion on what was wrong with this and why, including how it makes people feel. Thus, they get a feeling about exactly what plagiarism is and why we insist on pupils using their own words and ensuring they reference their sources of information. Thank you to the ever useful School Librarians’ Network forum for the idea.
Poetry Picnic – Come along to the poetry picnic held over the whole of lunch. Pop in for a short while are stay the full 40 minutes of your lunch. We might even bring back the popular ‘tongue twister’ competition.
Pupil helpers – There will be a requirement for some pupil volunteers to help with the poetry picnic and to tidy up afterwards so anyone interested should get in touch with Mrs Sinclair. (NB. We have three already so one or two more would be helpful.)
Playing with Light – We are also hoping to enlist the help of the science department so that a small display or quick experiments in light can be done during the poetry picnic. Watch this space!
Display with poetry competition images and poems from the poetry postcards.
So, a lot is planned and without you, the pupils and staff, this event wouldn’t work so well. Let’s see if this can be our best yet. See you next Thursday!
season for them yet), getting the candles out (battery operated, of course), and playing with torches, prisms and lasers (carefully). Much fun was had by all, none the least Mrs Sinclair, the Librarian who was much amused by her purchase of remote control candles, let alone experimenting with passing light through prisms, faceted glass balls and water bottles. We must than Mr McCaig, our science technician, for putting a tray of stuff together at the last minute as well as providing a fibre optic light.
