Tuesday 22 March 2016

Shakespeare Retold

This year we are celebrating Shakespeare's legacy, as it will be 400 years since his death.  We have put together in the War Memorial Library a display of modern and teenage fiction that re-tell some of Shakespeare's time-less stories for you to browse and borrow.

As part of the celebrations, the British Library is hosting an exhibition entitled Shakespeare in Ten Acts, which runs from Friday 15th April until Tuesday 6th September 2016. 


Graphic Novels - Encouraging Reluctant Readers to Read for Pleasure

Research shows that students who read for up to 30 minutes each day outside of lessons are more likely to achieve beyond the expected levels for their age group than those who never read.

Graphic novels are a great way of encouraging students to read for pleasure, especially amongst reluctant readers.  The artwork reduces the amount of reading a student has to do, allowing them to follow the story at a faster pace and the art can act as a visual prompt for potentially tricky words.

At TRS we have a growing collection of graphic novels in both the Discovery and War Memorial Libraries.  In the Discovery Library, as well as favourites such as The Simpsons titles, we also stock the graphic novel versions of popular titles such as Robert Muchamore’s The Recruit and manga versions of Darren Shan’s Saga of Darren Shan series and James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series.  In the War Memorial Library we have The Hulk andThe Avengers alongside classics such as V for Vendetta, Watchmen and Persepolis.  A love of graphic novels can complement and encourage the discovery of the original novel.




Alex Hayward, former TRS student, and winner of the Jack Petchey Award for outstanding achievement very kindly donated part of his award money to the Libraries for the purchase of graphic novels for the Discovery Library!  These are currently on display and include One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, Salem Brownstone All Along the Watchtowers and Courtney Crumrin. Volume 1, The Night Things. 

Please come and browse and borrow these and the rest of the collection.

Friday 18 March 2016

CILIP's Carnegie Medal shortlist 2016 announced

CILIP’s Carnegie Medal is awarded each year for an outstanding book for children and young people.  The Carnegie shortlist this year includes eight excellent books, most of which are available now in the War Memorial and Discovery Libraries and the rest are on order.


The short listed books are:
  • One by Sarah Crossan


The shortlist predominately features teen fiction with themes of secrets and lies. It includes previous winner Patrick Ness who, if he wins, would be the first ever author to win the award three times. 


There is strong competition from Costa Book of the Year The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge, a thrilling murder mystery set in Victorian times and the debut novel Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley, a story of two teenage girls who fall in love across the race divide in fifties America.  


To find out more about the books and their authors, go to the Carnegie Shortlist web page and click on the book that you are interested in reading.

Happy reading!

Friday 11 March 2016

World Book Day 2016 - Book Cover Bake Off Winners Announced

As part of this year's World Book Day celebrations, we held a book cover bake off!  Students were asked to create a cake around the theme of reading and book covers - there were some amazing entries.  The winners were:

First Prize - Simeon 8HA 
for his fantastic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea cake


Second Prize - Lexie Year 7
for her amazing Alice In Wonderland cake


Joint Third Prize- Summer 7FH and Daisy 7SE
for their glorious Ginger Bread Man cake




Tuesday 8 March 2016

Design a Poster for the Discovery Library Competition - Winner Announced!

We are delighted to announce that Max M in 8SA has won our competition to design a new 'this way' sign for the Discovery Library.

Max's design will be reproduced and displayed to direct users to the Discovery Library.  In addition, Max was presented with a book, WHSmith voucher and a bar of chocolate.


Friday 4 March 2016

World Book Day at TRS - Thursday 3rd March 2016

This World Book Day at TRS proved to be a great success thanks to the active engagement of students and the participation of staff, who looked fabulous in their departmental costumes!  The involvement this year of the Geography and English departments in planning and developing activities with the Librarians, led by Ms Roberts, was key to this success. 

As well as distributing book tokens to students via form tutors, creating World Book Day book marks, displays and a competition PowerPoint for use in form time, the Librarians worked with the Geography department to create and deliver some excellent Library Lessons.  These included a lesson on banned books, where the students broke into groups and, following discussions, had to correctly identify why and where in the world particular, often iconic, books were banned. 


Year 13 students took photographs of the day, which we look forward to sharing.  In the meantime, below are photographs of the three Librarians as 33.6 recurring Dalmatians from 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith and the Drama Department, who were literary characters that embody madness and the Geography Department as Roald Dahl book characters.  The prize for best costume was won by the Drama Department. 


Our Librarians as 33.6 recurring Dalmatians











Lady Macbeth, Miss Haversham, The Mad Hatter, The Prizoner of Azkaban and Norman Bates.
The Geography Department as Roald Dahl book characters




Whole school photo taken in our "War Memorial Library"


Tuesday 1 March 2016

World Book Day 2016 at TRS

World Book Day is a day set aside each year to celebrate reading, books, authors and illustrators. This year it takes place on Thursday 3rd March.
World Book Day at TRS is going to be bigger and better than ever!  We'll be dropping everything and reading, there'll be staff dressing up, Library Lessons and competitions, including a bake off, where students are invited to bake a cake themed around reading to be judged.

We have given out special World Book Day tokens to each pupil, with the exception of the Post 16 students who can collect one from the War Memorial Library on request. These vouchers can either be exchanged at your local book shop for one of the World Book Day books or they can be used to get £1 off any book costing £2.99 or more. You can use your voucher in any participating books shop from 29th Feb - 27th March 2016. 

Remember though, at TRS everyday is a celebration of books day with lots of great books available for you to borrow and read, including the latest releases, as well as competitions, your book reviews and themed displays of recommended reads!

CHECK OUT THE DISPLAYS IN THE WAR MEMORIAL AND DISCOVERY LIBRARIES FOR YOU TO BROWSE AND BORROW

Discovery Library WBD Display

Writes of Passage - 50 books that will change your life!


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