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You are here: Home / Archives for schools

School Librarian Of The Year Award Honour List

February 17, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

The School Librarian of the Year Award is the School Library Association’s prestigious honour to recognise the excellent work that is carried out in school libraries every day, and to highlight the current practice of those whose work is outstanding.

Congratulations to the SLA School Librarian of the Year 2020/21 Honour List:

  • Claire Marris – Toot Hill School, Bingham (Nottinghamshire)
  • Terri McCargar – Latymer Upper School (London)
  • Éadaoin Quinn – Enniscorthy Vocational College, Co. Wexford (Ireland)
  • Rose Palmer – The Oaks Primary School, Ipswich (Suffolk)
  • Kristabelle Williams – Addey and Stanhope School (London)

On 3rd March 2021 a special webinar has been organised by the School Library Association to celebrate the work of the Honour Listed librarians working in secondary schools. They will discuss their schools, opportunities and challenges with Ros Harding, SLA School Librarian of the Year 2019.

Whilst schools are closed, the judging panel are unable to visit the librarians at work and the decision to name the School Librarian of The Year 2020/21 is on hold. However, as in previous years, we continue to acknowledge the work of the exceptional librarians on the Honour List, especially in these challenging times. Their work will be showcased and celebrated at the Leading School Libraries Conference (11-12th June 2021).

Further details on the SLA School Librarian of the Year Award and full details on each of the all-female  2020/21 Honour List Librarians can be found at www.sla.org.uk/slya-2020.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: awards, librarians, libraries, prizes, school libraries, schools

Michael Rosen: Poetry in Primary Schools 2

May 22, 2017 By achuka Leave a Comment

Ahead of this morning’s announcement of the shortlist for the 2017 CLiPPA (Centre for Literacy in Primary Poetry Award) comes this timely blog post by Michael Rosen:

Some teachers have told me that on occasions people who manage schools have told them that they shouldn’t just be letting children read to themselves, and/or they shouldn’t just be reading and enjoying poetry. The teachers need to be doing some specific teaching and the children need to be doing a set task. In this blog, I’m going to try to answer this. I’m going to defend the activity of reading and enjoying poetry in the primary classroom. Just that. No task. This involves me imagining a situation in which a teacher has to justify this in a meeting with someone who is telling that teacher that there is little or no point in simply reading and enjoying poetry. 

via Michael Rosen: Poetry in Primary Schools 2..

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: awards, poetry, prizes, reading, schools

New school grants offered by Siobhan Dowd Trust

January 30, 2017 By achuka Leave a Comment

The Siobhan Dowd Trust will this year offer a £1,000 monthly grant for schools to spend in local bookshops.

The grants are open to any schools or organisations that work with disadvantaged young people and the money must be spent on children’s or YA books in local bookstores. Instead of organising the grants by region, like last year, the trust will give one grant a month to any school in the UK.

The winner of January’s grant will be announced on 1st March.

To enter, schools must email the trust with information about what they do encourage their pupils to love reading, as well as “demonstrate disadvantage”.

via New school grants offered by Siobhan Dowd Trust | The Bookseller.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: grant, schools

Robin Stevens: No School Visits For ‘Forseeable Future’

June 2, 2016 By achuka Leave a Comment

Robin Stevens announces that in response to pressure of work she will not be undertaking school visits for the foreseeable future. A FAQ at the end of the blog post confirms that she will honour all existing arrangements and will still be participating in other promotional events.

I’ve got Book 5 to finish by the end of June, and then a lot of exciting projects (more about these very soon, I promise!) to work on before the end of the year. I have to admit defeat – I can’t write these books and do as many events as I’ve been doing. I am not actually magic. And that’s why, with heavy heart, I’ve decided to close to school visits for the forseeable future.

via Robin Stevens | Blog.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: school visits, schools

Philip Pullman: Schools Are Letting Children Down

May 16, 2016 By achuka Leave a Comment

In a splendid piece in The Guardian’s Family section on Saturday, which led on Philip Pullman’s love of comments, the author went on to speak at length, in typically trenchant terms, about the current state of education:

guardiansmallPullman believes that schools are letting children down in terms of how they express themselves imaginatively. They are not taught to draw and, worse he thinks, are not encouraged to write stories in any appealing way. “I’m filled with unhappiness for the children at school, the English stuff they have to do these days. ‘Literacy’, as they call it. It’s terrifying and wicked and monstrous. One of the things children are told to do is to make a plan first. Write your plan and then write your story. Spend 15 minutes on the plan and 45 minutes on the story.”

Pullman knows from experience as a writer that this is the wrong way to go about it. “I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring.

“It’s not that I don’t write a plan, but I write the story first and then write the plan to see where I’ve gone. And I see that that bit needs to be moved there and I can do without that bit. But you need some timber before you can start doing the carpentry.”

It’s as if, Pullman suggests, pupils are being taught how to write stories or write any piece of composition in such a dull, bureaucratic way that they will be put off using imagination. That, at least, is in line with current government policy, he suggests waspishly. “[Education Secretary] Nicky Morgan said we don’t need the arts in education because you can’t make any money from them. Her point was that you can’t become a hedge fund manager if you learn to draw or write stories. It’s no good to you – that was the implication.”

What does Pullman suggest should be done? “You have to ask children to do something unnatural to them, which is to disregard what they are told by grownups. Teachers are wrong about this.

“They are not wrong because they are bad people; they are wrong because they have to do this or they’ll go to prison. They’ll get the sack and go to prison unless they do what they’re told, but it’s wrong. It’s a wrong way of writing. It’s a wrong way of reading. It doesn’t understand the meaning and purpose of these things, and in the end it’ll fail and it’ll fall and it’ll fade away.”

via Philip Pullman: Why I love comics | Life and style | The Guardian.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: education, expression, schools, writing

Boom time for children’s books as sales soar, but school provision declines…

June 18, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

Strange that this piece should not suggest a possible relationship between the two things…
Might it be the decline in school library provision that is helping the upsurge in children’s books sales by encouraging wealthier parents to buy more independently owned books for their children, leaving children from homes in which money is tight more and more disadvantaged…
Thoughts?

Sales of children’s books are at an all-time high, yet it is harder for publishers to reach young readers, says the owner of a literary agency that represents more than 200 children’s illustrators and writers.
ADVERTISING
Vicki Willden-Lebrecht, founder of London-based The Bright Group, said funding cuts at schools and libraries has meant there are fewer books than ever on display, making it harder to reach families that do not normally buy books.
“The saddest thing is often there isn’t a showroom for books, because of a shortage of space and a lack of funding," she said. "Schools and libraries need higher budgets to acquire more books. Children aren’t exposed to enough books. Lack of discovery is probably the biggest challenge in children’s publishing.”
Sales of children’s books in the UK – including e-books and other digital formats – increased to £349m in 2014, a rise of 11pc on the previous year, according to recent figures from the Publishers Association. That contrasted with a 2pc decline in overall book sales.

via Boom time for children’s books as sales soar, but where are readers? – Telegraph.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: libraries, provision, sales, schools

Pullman joins calls to scrap baseline tests

April 1, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

guardiansmall

Children’s author Philip Pullman has joined leading educationalists, early years specialists and psychologists in calling for plans to introduce tests for four- and five-year-olds in their first weeks at primary schools to be scrapped.

The tests, known as baseline assessment, are due to be trialled in a number of schools from September and will be used to measure basic skills including children’s ability to count and recognise letters and numbers immediately when they start in reception class. They will be introduced nationally in 2016.

Pullman is one of 80 signatories to a letter to the Guardian which argues that the tests should be stopped because they are “statistically invalid, will formalise a testing culture from the age of four, will be used to judge teachers and schools and, most importantly, will be dangerous for children”.

via Philip Pullman joins calls to scrap baseline tests for four and five-year-olds | Education | The Guardian.

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Education Tagged With: baseline, education, protest, schools, testing

2014 SLA/Siobhan Dowd Trust School Library Competition Winners

June 20, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

SiobhanDowd

2014 SLA/Siobhan Dowd Trust School Library Competition

The Siobhan Dowd Trust is delighted to announce an increased number of winners for the School Library Competition for 2014.

8 schools will get cash awards of £500, while another 4 will getawards of £1,500, £3,000, £3,000 and £6,000.

Kate Powling, Director of the Trust said: “We were pleased to get so many entries for our school ibrary competition, but shocked at how much need the entries demonstrated; it seems there are lots of libraries in schools without rooms, librarians, and in some cases books”.

The winners were announced this evening at the Schools Library Association conference in Manchester, and a local school Light Oaks Junior School in Salford won the top prize. The Library at Light Oaks has suffered an arson attack and a flood so the Judges felt it was time to attempt to reverse their run of bad luck. In their winning application, teacher Hannah Burke wrote “On reading of your exciting competition, I was bursting with enthusiasm to enter as I believe our cries for help have been heard. The desperate need for money to re-establish our library has been felt by all the staff, pupils and parents of our school”.

This years Judges were: Tony Bradman (Author and Chairman of the Siobhan Dowd Trust), Carol Webb (the Librarian at Forest Hill School, South London & the SLA School Librarian of the Year 2011), Charlotte Hacking (Teaching and Learning Manager at the Centre of Literacy in Primary Education) and James Dawson (ex-Primary teacher, YA Author and Queen of Teen nominee).

The Siobhan Dowd Trust is a charity that was set up by the Author Siobhan Dowd to use the royalties from her books to fund reading projects for disadvantaged young readers.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: awards, libraries, prizes, schools

25 tips for hosting an awesome author visit! – by the awesome Sarah McIntyre

May 13, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Here are 25 ways in which schools can ensure an author visit is a success. Includes little but all-important practical things…

And being the awesome person she is, although both she and Philip Reeve are not taking any more bookings for 2014, she includes a roster of recommendations at the end of her blog post – I have pasted the list below

14. Buy new marker pens. Every author knows the feeling of discovering on-stage that a pen’s a dud. Three test swipes of a used pen won’t always reveal which ones will work for more than a minute. An author visit is a big deal; invest in a pack of new markers, they don’t cost that much. Make sure you have enough flip chart paper if the author wants a flip chart, and check that the flip chart stand isn’t broken.

via Sarah McIntyre – 25 tips for hosting an awesome author visit!.

Note: Philip Reeve and I are totally booked up for the rest of the year and not taking on any more school visits. But I can recommend some awesome authors! This is by no means a comprehensive list, but some fabulous ones in England (and most will travel) include:

Gary Northfield (London), David O’Connell (London), Elissa Elwick (London), Gillian Rogerson (Leeds), Anne Cottringer(Hereford), the Etherington Brothers (Bristol), Jamie Littler (London), Laura Ellen Anderson (London), Neill Cameron (Oxford),Jim Medway (Manchester), The Phoenix Comic authors, Sally Nicholls (Oxford), Patrice Aggs (Brighton), Liz Pichon (Brighton),Guy Parker-Rees (Brighton), Steve Cole (Buckinghamshire), James Mayhew (Hertfordshire), Alex T. Smith (London), Philip Ardagh (Tunbridge Wells), Alex Milway (London), Lauren St John (London), Kjartan Poskitt (York), Fiona Dunbar (London),Candy Gourlay (London), John Dougherty (Gloucestershire), Adam Stower (Brighton), Layn Marlow (Surrey), Jo Cotterill(Buckinghamshire), Garry Parsons (London), Ed Vere (London), Lizz Lunney (Birmingham), Laura Howell (Birmingham), Asia Alfasi (Birmingham), Juliet Clare Bell (Birmingham), Jon Mayhew (Wirral Peninsula), Moira Young (Bath), Jeff Norton (London),Caryl Hart (Derbyshire), Emma Vieceli (Cambridge), Chris Priestley (Cambridge), Woodrow Phoenix (London/Cambridge),Mary Hoffman (Oxford), Meg Rosoff (London), Francesca Simon (London), Nana Li (London), Lucy Coats (London), Garen Ewing (East Grinsted), Bali Rai (Leicester), Bridget Strevens-Marzo (London), Mo O’Hara (London), Keren David (London),Damian Kelleher (London), Anthony McGowan (Leeds), Helena Pielichaty (Nottinghamshire), Ali Sparkes (Southampton), Ian Beck, Jamie Thomson, Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman, Andy Stanton, Nicola Davies, Saviour Pirotta, Tony Bradman,Nicola Smee, Michaela Morgan, Caroline Lawrence, Laura Dockrill (London), Anne Rooney, Kate Hindley, Shoo Rayner,Gillian Cross, An Vrombaut, Anthony Browne, Catherine Johnson, Michael Rosen, Mei Matsuoka, David Almond, Steve Lenton, Emma Dodd, Kelly Gerrard, Teri Terry, Chris Riddell (Brighton), Paul Stewart (Brighton), Jonny Duddle, Polly Dunbar,Leigh Hodgkinson, Hannah Marks, Anita Loughrey, The 2 Steves, Chris Mould, Frances Hardinge, Alan Gibbons, Holly Smale,Tim Bowler, Jackie Marchant.
And in Scotland, Adam Murphy (Glasgow), Nicola Morgan (Edinburgh and London), Vivian French (Edinburgh), Debi Gliori,Renita Boyle (Wigtown), Chae Strathie, Kev F Sutherland (Edinburgh)

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: author visits, schools

Walker & NLT to livestream Horowitz event

April 10, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Schools to be offered National Literacy Trust classroom pack tie-in for Anthony Horowitz live-streaming event in June.
The paperback edition of Russian Roulette is published by Walker Books on 5 June.

Walker Books and the National Literacy Trust will this June livestream Anthony Horowitz talking about Russian Roulette, the latest book in the Alex Rider teenage spy series.
The event will take place 16th June and will be hosted by TV presenter Barney Harwood. Horowitz will also answer questions sent in from the audience.
"I’m so glad Barney has agreed to talk to me live on air,” said Horowtz. “Like me, he’s always been a huge supporter of books and reading and the two of us are going to be beamed into classrooms all over the country – a great way to reach as many children as possible whilst mercilessly sabotaging the schools’ daily schedule.”
The National Literacy Trust has created a special Russian Roulette classroom pack for schools taking part, including "White Carnation", an Alex Rider short story.

via Walker to livestream Horowitz event | The Bookseller.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: Horowitz, livestreaming, National Literacy Trust, schools, Walker Books

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