Castlemilk High School
Library
Annual Report 2009 / 2010
Introduction
The school library’s budget from April 2009 – April 2010 was £2429.
The breakdown is as follows:
Key Figures
· Library opening hours were 840 – 415 Monday Thursday and 840 – 315 Friday.
· The library was used for exams, and was therefore inaccessible to classes for 40 out of 196 days.
· There are currently 3647 items in the library. This is down on last year owing to a good deal of weeding of old stock in June 2010.
· There are 20 PCs in the library.
Castlemilk High School Library
Stocktake July 2009
The stocktake is designed to ascertain the loss or gain of stock within the library. The last stocktake was conducted in June 2008. At that point, there were 3020 items in the library, with a value of 16186 pounds.
During 2008/2009 397 items were marked as missing or lost. This includes items discovered to be missing during stocktake, those reported missing by pupils, and those weeded out and disposed of. At an average cost of 5.99 pounds, this is a loss of 2378 pounds.
The current stock figure is 3756, which means that allowing for disposals and additions, the library gained 736 items during 2008 – 2009.
Statistics
Library Use – ICT
These charts show the rate of use of the library’s ICT facilities. They are used for both research (Internet) and programmes (MS Office and other educational programs). When a class is the library conducting research, the librarian will ensure resources are available to support the research.
This chart shows the book loan activity for 2009 / 2010. The dip in the library use in December and April / May / June reflects the use of the library for examinations.
Pupil Access
As well as being accessible to pupils during class time while accompanied by a teacher, the library was open for 20 minutes during lunchtimes. This allowed for pupils to use computers and issue books, as well as the occasional quiz. Each year group is entitled to access the library on a particular day.
The library was also open after school until 415 Monday-Thursday and until 315 on Fridays. This attracted pupils who had work to finish and /or homework to complete.
Reader Development
Film Visits
On Monday 23rd November and Monday 30th November, I visited the Odeon cinema with two groups of 14 pupils to see the New Moon, a film based on a teenage book which has been read by many pupils. I was accompanied by a teacher on each occasion.
Author Visits
There were a number of author visits throughout the year. These help to promote reading and authors, and sustain interest in using the library.
Saturday 5th September
Cathy Cassidy Event
This event was organised by North Ayrshire libraries, and was held in the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine. 11 pupils signed up to go, and paid £2 to get in to the event. I was accompanied by Alison Rennie. As well as a reading session, where she read from her new book, and a book-signing session, pupils were able to take part in activities such as jewellery making, and body painting, all in the spirit of a “girls day out”. Most of the girls who attended bought a copy of Cathy’s book, and asked her to sign it.
It appears that the event encouraged an interest in the books of this author, and certainly many of those attended have continued to show an interest in reading. I feel it was a very successful event which helped me to build up a relationship with the pupils who attended.
It was also reported on the school library blog.
http://chslibrary1.edublogs.org/2009/11/04/
Friday 6th November
Liz Rettig
This visit was funded partly by Live Literature Scotland, and was designed to engage some of the more able S4s in a dialogue about writing and literature. The pupils were given information about the writer by the librarian, and emailed websites, so that they could do some research before Liz arrived. I also took the step of giving each pupil an extract of one of the books, so that each pupil had at least seen a small amount of the author’s writing. I also bought a few extra copied of her books.
The visit itself involved Liz talking about effective first lines, and quiz to see if anyone could guess what some quotations were from. She then moved on to asking “what makes a book funny”. We read through joke books, and wrote down our favourite joke. Liz then finished by reading extracts from her own books.
The visit was very successful, in the sense that most of the pupils involved enjoyed it. I was obliged to place reserves on each of Liz’s books, which became more popular after her visit, and are on the most read list for the end of the year.
The event was reported on the school library blog.
http://chslibrary1.edublogs.org/2009/11/09/liz-rettig-comes-to-castlemilk-high/
Monday 8th March
Julie Bertagna
This visit was part of the Aye Write schools literature festival. The eight attendees were from two different groups, those being the school’s book group, most of whom had read the book, and library helpers, as a reward for their work on a World Book Day quiz. They were accompanied by the librarian. The visit involved a talk from the author about her novel, which is an imagined consequence of climate change. She addressed issues of rising sea levels and environmental damage. Some pupils have found the book fairly difficult to follow, but the visit in itself was a valuable event.
Thursday 29th April
John Rice
An S3 class received a visit from SPT poet in residence, John Rice. He led a discussion about poetry and creative writing, and encouraged pupils to write their own work during an afternoon visit.
Friday 18th June
Maggi Gibson
This event was part of the West End Festival’s children’s’ book festival. It was a talk about the author’s new book, Seriously Sassy: Crazy Days. 14 S1 pupils attended, and the event was reported for the Castlemilk Community News by S1 pupil Siobhan Lamb.
This was also reported on the school library’s blog.
http://chslibrary1.edublogs.org/2010/06/18/s1s-go-west/
World Book Day
This was held on Thursday 4th March.
One of the events was a teenage book quiz, compiled by 5 S3 library helpers. This allowed them to organise, advertise and compile a whole school event. The quiz attracted around 60 pupils.
There was also a screening of Cirque du Freak, a film based on a series of teenage books by Darren Shan. This attracted 14 pupils.
The events were advertised throughout the school, and on the school library’s blog.
http://chslibrary1.edublogs.org/2010/03/04/world-book-day/
Poetry Slam
This was organised by Culture and Sport Glasgow as part of the Aye Write literature festival. 11 S1 pupils were coached for eight periods by a poet, who encouraged them to write their own verse. They then attended a Poetry Slam final on 5th March. They performed on stage as a group in front of around 200 school pupils and teachers, and two poets performed their work solo.
Report available on the school library blog.
http://chslibrary1.edublogs.org/2010/03/09/poetry-slam-news-2/
Siobhan Lamb, a member of the poet group also reported the event for the local newspaper, Castlemilk Community News.
Book Group
In November 2009, I attempted to ascertain interest in a school book group. The school is able to access book group sets from the public library service. A number of readers showed an interest, mostly from S3 – S4 and we have read three books together since the group began. However it is often difficult to bring pupils together to discuss the book. It is proposed that I attempt the initiative for incoming S1s and S2s. I believe there will be interest, as there are a number of avid readers who will be joining S1 in August 2010. An evaluation will follow.
Information Literacy
From September – November 2009, 3 S1 English classes visited the library for a week long Information Literacy course. This is designed to introduce them to the concept of researching and using information, which they will have to do at length during their school career. The unit was revised during the summer of 2009 to accommodate for less able pupils, as well as to make it more relevant.
In June 2010, I was able to use a revised unit with H Orr’s English class, whose slow progress throughout the year made participation in the main block of information skills impossible. I created a Roald Dahl Webquest which allowed pupils to learn some information skills such as note-taking, using sources, and creating a presentation.
Primary / Secondary Liaison
In May 2010, I visited Castleton Primary to promote transition between primary and secondary, and ensure that pupils have a small idea of Information Literacy skills before they arrive. The work involved teaching the P7 pupils specific skills such as keyword generation, note-taking and creating presentations. The unit took the form of a webquest and related to the topic being followed by the class, which was Australia. I chose the topic of famous Australians, which would make the learning of information literacy skills relevant to their work.
This promotes links between the two schools. It is proposed that this forms the baseline of Information Skills in Castlemilk High school, which will be built upon during a number of different classes in 2010 / 2011.
I also held two reader development afternoons in Castleton Primary, as well as one in Miller Primary. This involved reading the first chapter of Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz to the whole class, showing a trailer of the related movie, and showing a video of an author event by Anthony Horowitz. This was to show the links between reading books and other things, such as different media, and events held by authors, both of which pupils will have the opportunity to take part in when they attend Castlemilk High School.
Library Helpers
I have been fortunate to have five S3 library helpers, who attend the library at lunchtime to deal with issues and returns, putting books away and generally tidying up. It promotes self-determination and initiative and is useful for pupils to have in their record of achievement.
Many of the pupil helpers were particularly avid readers, and I involved them in selecting and purchasing books during a visit to Waterstones bookstore in June 2010. I showed them how the process of book-buying works, and explained the rationale behind choosing certain books over others.
The helpers this year were:
Manasse Lisungi
Kimberley Kabasele
Ghazal Daneshfar
Emma McMillan
Rachael McIntosh
Ainslie Sims
On/off helpers were:
Amy McGowan
Alicia Kilday
It is proposed that I will advertise for four helpers from the new S3 next year.
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Castlemilk High School Library Annual Report 2009 / 2010