Welcome to the School Libraries Group Blog. Through this blog series, we hope to illustrate the power of the school library, the positive influences they can have for student and staff within schools and also to raise awareness of the abilities of school libraries across Ireland when they are funded, staffed and prioritised within their community.
March 2024
Book Club at Muckross Park College
Early mornings (8 a.m.) lounging on sofas, nibbling on biscuits, drinking juices or warm cups of tea, discussing the merits and downfalls of some popular and not so popular reads. We have seven book clubs in Muckross Park College and so far this academic year we have read and reviewed the following books: Where the crawdads sing; Small things like these; The kite runner; Punching the air; Educated; The inheritance games; The perfectionists and Truly devious.
It’s a wonderful way to start the day exchanging views on books with other book lovers!
Literary Trick-or-Treat in the Mount Sackville Library
In Mount Sackville last October, librarian Mary-Beth trialed a ‘Literary Trick-or-Treat’ idea with first and second year students and it worked really well!
Literary Trick-or-Treating, step by step:
- 42 spooky/Halloween-themed books were selected and divided into 6 groups of 7 books. Mary-Beth created 6 questionnaires, each with 7 questions. Questions were designed so that student would be able to find the answers by looking at the front or back covers, or on the first page of the book.
For example:
This famous vampire love story features Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.
Title:
Author:
Give 3 adjectives used to describe Edward (on the back cover)
Answers: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer; mesmerizing, supernatural, irresistible, impenetrable
- With the help of 1st Year Library Assistants, 42 coloured pumpkins were cut and laminated – there were 6 different colours, one for each group (orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and red).
- Pumpkins were then attached to the spine of the books and put back on the shelves.
- Students came into the library with their English class. Each class has around 24 girls, so they were divided into 6 groups of 4 students. They were assigned a colour and were instructed to run around the library to find all of the pumpkins associated with that colour.
- Once they had found all 7 pumpkins, they were given a question sheet. They had to use the books to answer all the questions.
- When they finished, they presented their question sheet. Their answers were checked and if they were all correct, they got to choose a ‘trick’ from the ‘Bag of Tricks’ – i.e., sing a song, do a dance, say ‘Hello, my name is xxx’ in a different language, etc.
- Once the whole group had done the ‘trick,’ they then got a treat (i.e., chocolate or jellies).
The activity took about 30 minutes to complete; the plan is to expand it next year so that there are 10 books and 10 questions per group. The students enjoyed it and it was useful (and challenging enough) for both 1st and 2nd Years.
November 2023
Culture Festival at Marino College Library
The Marino College ‘Creative Minds Festival of Diversity & Biodiversity’ saw the culmination of a huge amount of work, planning and creativity from the whole school community. Many of the JCSP Library’s activities, initiatives and projects in the school year 2022-23, as well as the activities of student library lunchtime clubs (School of Sanctuary, Culture Club, Geek Retreat, Only Humans GSA Club) were programmed to come together for this Festival. From music and dance skills revealed at the JCSP Christmas Celebration Concert in the library, books read and discussed in library classes, bodhran making sessions in the library for SnaG, African and Samba drumming workshops, participation in the local Sheriff Street St. Patrick’s Day Parade, modelling with Lego, art competitions and cross-cultural exchange, to our Romania Day, St. Nicholas’ Day, Lunar New Year and Bealtaine celebrations – everything culminated in our Creative Minds Festival.
Classroom and library teaching and learning supported the development of students’ practical, organisational and logistic skills, as well as challenging them to explore and express their creativity and imagination through artistic expression. History, Geography, SPHE, CSPE, Music, Irish, Woodwork, Religion, English, SEN and Art Departments all collaborated with the library in exploring the themes of diversity and biodiversity across the curriculum.
On May 11th, a whole-school Parade, with every student and staff member assigned a role took place. The Parade’s aim was to showcase the school to the wider community and to further build and develop links in the community, as well as celebrating the diversity of our school and locality and the biodiversity of the area. The parade snaked through the residential areas behind the school, with local residents, business owners and stakeholder groups then invited back into the school for a Culture Festival and Art Exhibition.
The Art Exhibition showed works created as part of the School’s engagement with RTE’s ‘This Is Art’ Programme and the Culture Festival celebrated the rich diversity of heritage in our school, with food, music and displays of material culture from all around the world, gifted/donated by parents/guardians and the wider community, with organisation led by our School of Sanctuary student committee. The event took a huge amount of hard work and planning, mostly after-hours in staff free time, and involved a lot of outreach and collaboration. We worked with groups including Dublin City Council (permissions, insurance), the Guards (road closure, stewarding), the NEIC, Resident’s Associations, local businesses, sports and cultural organisations, Dublin Port Company, The Five Lamps Arts Festival, Akidwa and East Wall for All as well as with a local Primary School, St. Vincent’s GNS. Dublin Bus briefly diverted a bus route for us! The day was a huge success, thanks to the hard work and dedication of students, staff and the buy-in and support of school management. Our hearts were full at seeing the entire community come together for this joyous celebration. This JCSP Library is the beating heart of the school learning community and it was wonderful to see our students share their passion, knowledge, enthusiasm and skills.
Reading for pleasure all year round – North Wicklow Educate Together Secondary School (NWETSS) and Bray Library
NWETSS, recognising how important reading for pleasure and the library are for its students, introduced library reading classes for first and second years during 2022/23 in their newly established school library. To ensure that students would have library access when the school is closed and to deepen links between the school and the community, NWETSS School Library collaborated with Bray Library to encourage students to join their public library. In 2022/23, first and second year classes were supported to visit and, with parental permission, join their local library. During their class visits students were shown around Bray Library, advised of the different in-person and online services it provides, and given the opportunity to browse, read and borrow – to get familiar with the library space and better understand that it is there for them. Membership of the public library was also essential for student participation in the School Library’s summer reading challenge.
Following the success of this initiative, for 2023/24 the NWETSS School Library will expand this collaboration and, once parents consent, work with the new first years and well as TY and senior students to facilitate public library membership.
The King’s Hospital School Library – 1-minute book reviews
A great activity to do with a class groups is to give them a couple of weeks’ notice and do a 1-minute book review.
Each student then has to stand up – or not if they prefer to sit, so long as they can be heard – and show the cover of the book they are going to recommend and talk about it for 1-minute. Each student is timed and challenged to keep to the limit. One minute of speaking may equate to 140 words. This works really well. The facilitator can take notes and make a poster of the recommendations.
This is a great activity for student engagement, to have them thinking on the spot and also about their wider reading, including what they like and may like to read next.
LAI School Libraries Group 