What a half term...

This has been a very difficult start the year, with the loss of Mr Geraghty and bereavements for several members of staff, and awful news for some of our ex-students.

The library has been very much a centre for all of us struggling with the events of this term so far, and I'd like to thank all our students for the kindness they've shown the staff and each other at this time.

Please welcome Mrs Chandler!

It's a new year, and we're welcoming a new member of staff, Mrs Chandler, who is taking over from Mrs Sweet now that she's retired.  She may look very familiar to a lot of people as she's been working as a parent volunteer here for years, but it's great to welcome her to the library team!

Please drop in and have a chat.  I'm determined to teach her to crochet before the year is out...

Year 7 Reading Programme

This year we're launching a new Year 7 reading programme, aimed at refocusing our energies on reading for pleasure.

The beginning of secondary school is a challenging time for many readers, as the business of school  and life can take over from reading, and a lot of students find that they put books down and don't pick them up again.  Our aim this year is to ensure that this doesn't happen.

Year 7 students are being asked to read for ten minutes a day, every day.  We're tracking their attitudes to reading via a survey and will be tracking their reading through the use of library Reading Logs, which will be issued to students each time they have a library lessons.  Huge numbers of commendations are up for grabs! We'll also be writing more reviews, making recommendations and developing our use of the library as a resource.  For more details, please drop me an email!

Another academic year gone by *sniff*

Hard to believe that it's the end of the school year already! It's been a fun one, with so much going on.  And we have big plans for next year too...

Project Rollercoaster - The Grand Finale!

Around a year ago, our Nerdfighters asked if they could go to Alton Towers.  I told them that if they prepared magnificent research projects on rollercoasters, then yes.  They did.

Here's Isay's account of the day:

On the 16^th May 2012, I and twenty one other students as well as two members of staff sampled the early morning sunshine at the gates of Roundwood Park School. We were waiting, an hour before school starts to board a coach on what was to become a tiring but exciting day.

Since the beginning of last year, the library has become home to a new club called the Nerdfighters. Once a week, we gather in the library, discuss topics that interest us and come up with ways to make the world suck less. One such discussion contemplated the brilliance of rollercoasters, and before too long a project had been founded with the condition that if we worked hard and produced projects with a rollercoaster theme, we might be able to justify a school trip to a theme park.  So that was how we found ourselves boarding our coach with cries of DFTBA    (don’t forget to be awesome) on our way to Alton Towers.

The coach journey was subdued for the most part, with many of us trying to catch up on our sleep before reaching our destination; although by the final hour we had had many renditions of ABBA tracks as well as having set up the tradition to cheer whenever we saw anything relating to Alton Towers. This then lead to the coach being very noisy as we reached the village of Alton!

Our timing was perfect and so after posing with Sid the Sloth, we found ourselves without any queues to have to deal with, and with the run of the park virtually to ourselves. We decided that going on absolutely everything was the best idea for how to spend the day, and so we started at the back of the park with Air, Nemesis and Nemesis Sub-Terra. For those who did not fancy the Nemesis Franchise- seeing that Air was a firm favourite – time was taken to sit out in the sunshine (!) and consult the map while commenting on the nerdiest topics available.

We then moved onto a small rollercoaster based on a mine train, which was fun and light hearted, before getting soaked in the Rapids- not helped by the fact that you could pay for a water cannon to soak unsuspecting riders! After a brief lunch break in which we cooed over some very fluffy goslings and then got chased by their parents, we walked on to the Sonic Spinball- which proved very popular indeed, despite the threat of rain.

Next was the highly anticipated Oblivion- in which you are dropped for 180ft into a dark tunnel before resurfacing at the other side at speeds of up to 65mph. While quite a few more of us just watched from a distance, it did not stop a good proportion of the group running from ride to ride and then regretting it afterwards.

Thankfully for some, the next ride was quite a walk away from the Oblivion part of the park. The time had come for us to embark upon the Dark Forest, which unsurprisingly, is home to what is reported to be two of the scariest rides in the park. First up was Rita, which was both the most anticipated and the most dreaded rollercoaster on the entire trip if the excited but nervous expressions were anything to go by. I personally was cursing my adrenalin-fuelled side for deciding that this particular rollercoaster would be a good idea, as for my first time on a ‘proper’ rollercoaster I had cleverly chosen one that accelerated from 0-100mph in 2.5 seconds with a G-force of 4.7. Nevertheless, we all piled on and although most of us were screaming, a select few still managed to sing the Muppets theme tune the entire way round.

Next was Thirteen, which had only a few participators, as many of us were too tired and still recovering form Rita to experience the only freefall drop in rollercoaster history.

We had by that point been on pretty much everything in the park, so we instead returned to Air by popular demand to once again feel as if we were flying. Then for those who still felt the need for adrenalin, Nemesis and Ripsaw were revisited, while the rest of us sat in the sun once again and marvelled at one member of the party who had managed to eat 10 donuts throughout the day.

While some of our group decided to revisit the Sonic Spinball and other rides, some of us who felt that our last ride should be one in which we once again got soaking wet, decided on The Flume. After being covered in water once again, as well as being attacked by rubber ducks, we exited our last ride and then encountered no less than a pirate driving down the street singing and dancing as he did so. Point Proven: Never underestimate the randomness of Alton Towers.

We left the theme park both exhausted and still wishing for more, although any thoughts of rushing back around the theme park were soon abandoned as everyone realised how tired they were on the coach journey. The day had been memorable, exciting, and a lot better than maths, and so we were sure that we would have many reminders of our trip for a long time to come. One of the ‘reminders’ however, became especially noticeable when we came into school the next day with sunburn from the lovely weather!

Our hard work over our projects definitely paid off, and we will certainly have a lot to ‘report’ at the next Nerdfighters meeting. One question came out of this trip however, and one that we as the Nerdfighter community really want an answer to. When can we go again? 

Carnegie Shortlist 2012

It's that time of year again and our Shadowers are fully geared up to shadow the Carnegie award again.  It's a brilliant shortlist this year, featuring some debut novels, as well as some from established favourites.  I was delighted to see A Monster Calls on both the Greenaway and Carnegie list, and am really hoping for a Greenaway win for it!  Of the eight shortlisted novels, I have read only three this year, so I'm looking forward to reading the rest.  I'm starting with Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys which already has me completely hooked only a few pages in.  


Our Shadowers will have a tough job choosing only one of these to win! 

The shortlist is:
 

David Almond MY NAME IS MINA 


Mina writes and writes in an empty notebook, and through her stories, thoughts, lessons and dreams, her journal grows into something extraordinary. A prequel to the author's CILIP Carnegie Medal-winning novel, "Skellig". 


 

Lissa Evans SMALL CHANGE FOR STUART

Ten years old and small for his age, Stuart Horten moves to the dreary town of Beeton, away from all his friends. But before long he is swept up in a quest to find his great-uncle's lost workshop, a place stuffed with trickery, magic – and danger.

Sonya Hartnett THE MIDNIGHT ZOO


Under cover of darkness, two brothers cross a war-ravaged country carrying a secret bundle. One night they stumble across a town that has been reduced to smouldering ruins. Amidst the wreckage is a zoo, filled with animals in need of hope.

 



Ali Lewis EVERYBODY JAM


Danny lives in middle of the outback. His older brother Jonny was killed in an accident last year, but no-one ever talks about it. Meanwhile his sister is pregnant, the rains haven't come and it's time for the annual cattle muster, during which Danny is determined to prove he can fill his brother's shoes.

 


Andy Mulligan TRASH


Three friends, Raphael, Gardo and Rat live on a heap of trash and spend their days sifting through other people's rubbish. One day they find something extraordinary – a deadly secret. From that moment onwards, they are hunted without mercy, and their lives will never be the same again.

Patrick Ness A MONSTER CALLS The monster shows up after midnight. It isn't the one Conor has been expecting; the one from his nightmare; the one he has had nearly every night since his mother started her treatment. But this new monster is ancient, and wild, and it wants something just as dangerous from Conor: the truth. Annabel Pitcher MY SISTER LIVES ON THE MANTELPIECE Ten year old Jamie hasn't cried since his sister's death five years before. Though everyone kept saying they would get better with time; things are now worse than ever. Dad drinks, Mum's gone and Jamie still has a whole heap of unanswered questions.

 


Ruta Septys BETWEEN SHADES OF GREY


One night, fifteen-year old Lina, her mother and brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia. An unimaginable and harrowing journey has begun, but Lina refuses to give up hope of seeing home and loved ones again.


Details from the Carnegie website.


As last year, we'll be posting our reviews both on our student blog, and over on the CILIP Shadowing site.  This year I'm hoping for more fan art, fan fic and the launch of a themed cake baking competition!  Fingers crossed for some author involvement too - watch this space... 

Reading Blanket Relay!

As the passion for crafting and making seems to spread (wooo!) some of our knitters are moving on to crochet.  We're working on a Reading Blanket to live on the comfy seats in the library, so that chilly readers can snuggle up underneath.  It'll be built over the course of the next few weeks in a relay, with the aim being to have someone working on it all break and lunch time, every day.

This was our day 1 progress, expertly modeled by top knitter and crocheter, Louise.  

Let's see how long it takes to grow! 

RPS on Pinterest!

Pinterest, an online pin board that can also act as a link library, has really caught our attention!  I've been pinning stuff to my own like a madwoman over the last few weeks, and now we've signed up an account for the library too.  Please follow our boards to see what we're adding to the library, what we're reading, and what we dream of having!

It seems as though Pinterest is going to be an incredibly useful tool for collecting visuals.  This should be particularly useful for Arts students who are collecting inspiration from around the internet.

If you'd like an account, please email me and I'll forward an invite to you as soon as I can.

Tools for the EPQ

Students in sixth form are working on their EPQs (Extended Project Qualification) and have been gathering research from books and the internet in their relevant areas.  Here are a few tools that they've been finding useful:

Evernote
Evernote is a free subscription service which serves as an online notebook.  Information can be categorised and the format encourages the recording of important bibliographic information. Evernote can be used to store notes, images, articles, anything.  Useful extensions are available for most browsers.

Watch this video for a quick tutorial:

Diigo
Diigo is a social bookmarking tool that quickly and easily stores all of your online bookmarks.  Specially useful for sharing your sources, keeping track of what you've been reading, and also getting access to collections of sites that others have already collected.

Zotero
Zotero takes these things a step further and formats your references into your choice of system.  We recommend that all students taking the EPQ at advanced level make use of a standard referencing system, in preparation for similar work at University.  The most commonly used is Harvard, but if students are already sure of where they're going to be studying next, they can chose to use the format of that particular institution.  The Firefox add-on is superb and I'd recommend it for anyone who is doing large scale research.  It not only formats website details for you, but can be used to track down the bibliographic information for books, journals and papers too.  Genius tool.

Reader Feedback Fun

Our active reading groups are always looking for something to get their teeth into and were recently asked to take part on a survey by author Neil Arksey, looking at the opening chapters of his new book, Intelligent Life.  Our students read the sample chapters and gave feedback online.  They were very impressed with the opening and have demanded copies for here, and continued to talk about what they'd read right up past the end of lunch bell (apologies to form tutors!)

Their names were put into a draw to win a signed copy of Intelligent Life, and the winner was Molly in Year 8. Congratulations Molly!  

To take part in the feedback gathering, please read the sample chapters and complete the survey.

The Federation of Children's Book Groups

I'm pleased to say that RPS Library will be joining the St Albans and District Children's Book Group, which is part of the FCBG.  We're really looking forward to taking part in the voting for next year's Red House book awards and getting to know some more of our local participants!

Red House Book Award

The winners of the Red House book award have been announced, with The Brilliant World of Tom Gates by Liz Pichon winning the award for the Younger Readers category, and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness scooping up the award for Older Readers and winning the overall prize for the year.

What is particularly special about this award is that it's voted for entirely by children, so it really is a first-hand reader's choice of winner.  I was delighted to see Ness win, as one of my concerns was that few younger readers would be able to access the gut wrenching emotions of his book, which seemed to be the case with our readers here, but it's wonderful to see that they can and do.