World Book Day Recommendations

Thursday 2nd March was World Book Day and we’ve been celebrating with quizzes, book recommendations and our DEAL event.

DEAL stands for Drop Everything and Listen and teachers and librarians joined in to read to their classes for 20 – 30 minutes at 11.30am. Although reading aloud to classes in primary schools is common, it happens much less at secondary level. This seems a shame so at the suggestion of Deputy Head Academic, Ben Evans, we set up DEAL which we initiated last year.

It’s an opportunity for teachers to choose an extract from a novel, a favourite poem or short story or a text relevant to their subject to share with their classes.

‘West with the night’ by Beryl Markham

I thoroughly enjoyed reading to a group of 10 3rd Formers. I gathered up the comfy seating in the library for an informal layout and launched into Beryl Markham’s account of her solo flight across the Atlantic to attempt to reach New York from England in 1936. To my relief they were rapt for what turned out to be 40 minutes of reading aloud and had numerous questions – How big was the plane? What did it look like? It prompted a really interesting conversation.

 

 

 

Our Head of Maths, Paul Cootes, remembered one of Isaac Asimov’s ‘I Robot’ short stories making a big impression on his when he was younger so he read that to his 3rd Form Maths class. They too were fully engrossed in listening to the story.

Here are some of the student and staff Favourite Books collected on our flipchart on World Book Day:

Looking at the titles fiction certainly wins the day!

 

Tutor Group and Book Club Reads

One positive aspect of lockdown has been an increase in reading. Many students and staff tell me they have been reading more than usual and book clubs have been flourishing.  I proposed the idea of tutor group book clubs with a shared read chosen either by the students themselves or I provided a shortlist of suggested titles with summaries and the students voted for their favourite. We now have 10 tutor groups from Y9 to L6th reading a book together and looking forward to discussing it in group tutorials later this term. The Picton Y9 boys read ‘Ready Player One’ by Ernest Cline over the Christmas holiday and we had a lively discussion including a number of Y8s who are joining the house in September 2021. The boys were enthusiastic about the book and volunteered insightful comments. House Master and Assistant HM Mr Murray and Mr Bilclough were brilliant champions of the book (it helped that this is one of Mr Murray’s favourite books and English teacher Mr Bilclough is a previously sceptical convert!)

The Wellington Community Book Club are reading ‘Jeoffry the Poet’s Cat’ by Oliver Soden and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig for their online discussion in March.

 

 

The Lower 6th Book Club has been flourishing and expanding and have read a diverse trio of books so far.

 

Happy World Book Day – Thursday 5th March 2015

group croppedToday is World Book Day and we are celebrating books and reading today! Looking forward to seeing pupils and staff in the Library at break this morning for cookies, brownies and our Opening Lines of Books quiz.

Try your hand at this 10 Second Book Quiz  (many thanks to Sue, the Librarian at Roedean for sharing this one!) It is also on the screens in the Dining Hall today.

On a day when we celebrate our enjoyment of books and reading why not support Book Aid International? This charity is changing people’s lives through the supply of books, resources and support of libraries in Africa. Watch Samuel’s story here

 

World Book Day Shelfies – Can you match the book shelf to the teacher?

pollyI’ve got a bit of an obsession with shelfies at the moment (not my idea but I love it). Snapshots of people’s bookshelves are fascinating. Here are some examples submitted to The Guardian newspaper in December 2013. I thought it would be interesting to post some staff shelfies on the library blog to celebrate World Book Day next Thursday 6th March. At the staff CPD “Ideas Exchange” in the library on Wednesday I was chatting about this plan and Matt Oakman came up with the brilliant idea of making it into a competition – match the shelfie to the teacher.

shelfie 1

Three very diverse examples of staff shelfies. Email yours to the  library before Thursday 6th March.

shelfie 2

shelfie 3 shelfie 4 shelfie 6 Shelfie 7 shelfie 8 shelfie 9 shelfie 10 shelfie 11 shelfies 5

Quite a few Penguins and a smattering of Puffins!

Quite a few Penguins and a smattering of Puffins!