Nerdfighter Projects

With Project Rollercoaster nearing completion, our Nerdfighters have started to think about what they'd like to do next.  The main area of interest seems to be craft related, so the knitters have taken off their work again.  They've been training up our new Year 7 library regulars and the knitting box is a horrific mess, I mean, productive and creative hotbed of activity.  Yeah.

Our more experienced knitters are launching a range of mittens, knitted in our new house colours, to be sold to students across the school.  They start at £4 but can be customised with buttons and crochet flowers (thank you to Nicole in Year 10 for teaching me how to make these) for an extra couple of pounds.  The original plan was to raise money for charity, but they took me quietly aside and asked if instead they might be allowed to fund an author visit, which we'd had to cancel plans for after budget restrictions were felt a little too tightly.  After a brief moment of eye dabbing and awwwing, I of course agreed and they're now working on raising money to have Patrick Ness come and visit later in the year.  They really enjoyed his Twitter chat with us during Carnegie, so they would love to have him come and speak about his work.  His name is scrawled on the money box and the double entry book-keeping sheets they're keeping (yes, they're really doing it properly) is titled accordingly.

So if anyone wants any mittens, I know where you can get some great ones.

Welcome Back!

Term has begun and I'm delighted to report that we already have a fantastically enthusiastic new intake of Year 7s who have begun to colonise the library and make it their own. 

There's a lot coming up this term. 

• Open Evening.  Eugh.  Clean all the things! 
• Booked Up.  I'm so glad that the funding for Booked Up is still there.  Those in charge of grants and awards must be aware of how absolutely wonderful this is for our students, many of whom don't own books of their own, as well as how important a message this is.  Literacy is important.  Important enough that they want ALL students to own books.  
• Project Rollercoaster!  The research is well underway and we've set a deadline of 21st October, just before half term, for projects to be completed.  We're hoping to have a presentation afternoon, inviting parents and staff to share in the work that our Nerdfighters have been doing.  And then...  ALTON TOWERS. 
• NaNoWriMo - Project Rollercoaster wraps up just in time for us to launch this year's event!  It looks as though the uptake this year is going to be particularly impressive, in fact I'm quite worried that we just won't have enough computers.  The achievements of last year will be hard to top, but I think we can do it. 
• Christmas!  Yes, I may be getting a little ahead of myself, but still.  

There are also the inductions for the new Year 7s of course, and information literacy sessions with the new Year 12s. 

This year we're also running a school wide CPD course based on the Cambridge librarians 23 Things programme.  Over the course of 23 weeks, we'll look at research skills and new media, with a direct focus on how these things can be integrated into teaching and learning. 

Exciting times.