For the last five weeks we have had the privilege of having Scott’s
Year 7 pupils in our library activity. Although as usual for this year we had to
go to their form room as opposed to them coming to the library, we had a great
time! Read on if you want to know what we got up to…
Week one
Having arrived at your classroom
Mr Scott sang the praises of a very literary minded House and he was right!
Some of the top heroes and villains in our quiz you got straight away, and you
had some very interesting ones that were missed off the list like the Snow
Queen from the Narnia books and Lara from His Dark Materials.
You obviously all read for
pleasure a lot. Jasmine painted a beautiful picture of a sofa in her kitchen in
the sun as her favourite place to read whereas Holly just needed food! We had
interesting discussions on when you re-read a book with Soraya telling us she
only does this when she is disappointed with the ending and wants to see if
she’s missed something. We also had a good discussion on ‘books versus
films’ and why Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief film is the worst ever
adaptation! We finished the session by showing you some of our new fiction and
within 24 hours Chris had already napped The Last Day by Andrew Murray Hunter.
A brilliant start Scott’s!
Week 2
This week was non-fiction week but we started the session with an explanation of the 'Click and Collect' system including a video of how Scott's would get from their classroom to the library and also a video of the library itself so they knew what it looked like. We then talked about the Dewy Decimal system. Mr. Scott revealed his favourite food was Birds Eye Arctic Roll and we tried to put books on this dessert in lots of different categories i.e. poetry, history, economics, company law and Mr Scott's favourite - a festival celebrating Arctic Rolls! Scott's also decided that the British Library was much better than the Library of Congress and loved the other unusual libraries that we showed them. Having given Mr. Scott ownership of the four buzzers, we started the extremely competitive game of Jeopardy with all the answers having been in the non-fiction presentation. Mr Scott’s skills as a referee came to the fore and it was a highly contested competition with the Blue team eventually winning on 200 points!
Week 3
We started with an animated
discussion on ‘books versus eBooks with strong opinions being voiced on either
side. We then told Scott’s what we were expecting from a good book review and
the rest of the session was spent in silence as you all worked on your
presentation. We were very impressed with your concentration and look forward
to your reviews next week.
Week 4
Your book
reviews did not disappoint Scott's!
We were really impressed with all of you and especially with the support you
gave all your peers when they were presenting. The questions you asked were
great and we learnt lots more about the books through them. Ms Johns and I
spent a long time trying to narrow the top five down which wasn't easy because
so many were brilliant – we actually ended up with the top six!.
In first place was Zayn with 'Unwind' by Neal Schusterman. He was the only one who ran out of time and we will never know what his last paragraph said! He gave a good summary of the plot and said he loved the development of the characters. He was also super enthusiastic!
In second place was Orin. His book review was 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' by Robert Kiyosaki. He started his summary of the book with a debate and interacted with everybody right from the start. He felt the book was easy to read and fun but acknowledged that it might need some vocabulary explaining. His Dad inspired him to read it.
In third place was Eva with the
book 'Wonderling' by Mira Bartok.
We had never heard of this book but by the end of her review we will be looking
into getting it for the library. She said there were many unexpected plot
twists and she'd obviously done lots of research.
In fourth place was Joseph with
'Pet Sematary' by Stephen King. He started by reading the blurb but then went
into his own description of the plot. He said it was a horror book that felt like
it was happening now and there were surprises and suspense. His only criticism
was that possibly it was too long.
In fifth place was Rhiannon with
'Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins. She had a very clear delivery and said she
was drawn into the book with its adrenaline. Her only criticism was that it was quite graphic
in places.
In sixth place was Harry with 'Tom
Gates: super cool skills 'by Liz Pichon. He said it was full of things to do whilst avoiding homework and
had lots of illustrations. The only weakness was that possibly it was too young
for year 7s. Despite being very nervous, he did a very good presentation.
As Mr Scott said at the end, the
skills of presenting a book review in front of your peers is a very valuable
skill to learn and you all did brilliantly.
Week five
This was our last session with Scott's and we will miss you. Having given out the prizes, we gave
you a short presentation on the history of Bristol Grammar School. We then did
a quiz on everything and more that we had done in the last five sessions. The Yellow
team and Red team drew on five points each whilst the Green team and Blue team
were joint winners on seven points each. After the tiebreaker question of how
many books there were in our library, the Blue team's guess was the closest
even though it wasn't actually very near! We finished off our time with you by
showing you the blog and telling you that this week we would be writing all
about you in it so hopefully some of you are reading this and we look forward to seeing you in the library in person next term!
Mrs Godden and Ms Johns