Readathon Fundraising Total!

The current total from our year 8 Readathon and the non-uniform day before half-term is an amazing £1932.15!

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this!

This money will go to help children in hospital. For them, books and stories are particularly important – they comfort, distract, reassure and entertain. Read for Good provides a regular supply of brand new books along with storyteller visits to brighten up the days of children in all of the UK’s main children’s hospitals. Children unable to leave their beds can choose books from a specially designed mobile bookcase which wheels right up to their bedside, and because they are brand new, the books are safe for those at high risk of infection.

 

One of the hospitals to benefit is the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children –

Northern Ireland’s only children’s hospital with 83 beds and around 7,500 in-patients each year.

 

Studying for your exams? Too busy to read? Too much revision to do? Stop right there!

Now is one of the best times to make sure you’re getting your daily reading for pleasure.

The benefits of daily pleasure reading are huge:

•  You’ll almost certainly reduce stress.

• Being carried away into the world in a book helps you take a break. It gives what you’re learning a chance to consolidate and settle.

• It will help you get to sleep more quickly if you use it to calm your mind before bed.

• Daily reading for pleasure in teenagers is associated with higher grades and greater success.

Read what you want, something you can get carried away by, something that will let you escape for a while to another world.  it’s medicine for the soul. 

Reading for pleasure is not a luxury:

You’ll come back feeling better and better able to face exams!

Read to relax!

Congratulations to Hayden Smyth 8B4!

To celebrate Children’s Book Week, which begins on October 31, we decided to offer one lucky pupil a chance to win a Kindle Fire.

Pupils had to submit a correctly answered Dingbats quiz sheet to the library to be in with a chance. All the clues were titles of books and from the correct entries, one winner was chosen at random!

Well done Hayden!

 

New Pupil Librarians for 2018-2019

This year we once again invited pupils to apply for the position of pupil librarian.

Our pupil librarians need to be reliable; hardworking; honest; cheerful; sensible and enthusiastic and demonstrate a genuine love of reading.

So with this in mind, and following completion of our selection process,  we have selected the following pupils to help with the running of the library:

Crystal Speers                       Tara Finnegan

Emilija Paberza                     Sarah Moore

Katie Orr                                 Ellie-Jane Quinn

The chosen 6 will be allocated shifts in the library to cover lunchtimes and before school. They will help to keep the stock tidy and in the correct order, help with library displays, and with the issue and return of resources. They will take part in assemblies and help to promote any events that take place in the Library.

Bck row

Our pupil librarians will also be on hand to help other students find what they are looking for and any other jobs which help the librarian.

Well Done Girls!

Joffre White Visit

On Monday 8^th October, we were once again privileged to have published author Joffre White visit us in Killicomaine JHS.

The morning session, was one hour long and entitled ‘The Power of Words’.

All of year 8  were in attendance at this lively, inspirational event. Delivered in such a way that thoroughly engaged the whole audience, it wasn’t just about reading, but also addressed self-belief and personal potential.

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 After a quick stop for coffee, Joffre then enthusiastically hosted two groups of pupils from Year 8 who were excited to be involved in his creative writing workshops.

These workshops were intended to inspire students to put pen to paper and write a story. Joffre lead them in lively, fun sessions that opened their imaginations and allowed them all, even our most reluctant writers, to create and write original stories.

Joffre White – Author, a UK Patron of Reading & Reading & Writing Motivator shared a post.

Killicomaine Junior High fantastic year 8’s inspired by the power of words- at the end a boy came up ‘I don’t usually like reading, but now I’m going to find ‘’my’’ book!’ That’s what it’s all about. #patronofreading #authorschoolvisitswork #supportingschoollibraries😎

Joffre White (author); Mrs Doogan & Ms Fulton

Book-in-a-Jar Contest

We invited you to guess the title and author of the book in the jar.

You could turn or shake the jar but you could NOT open the jar!

There were lots of correct entries and the winner was drawn randomly …….

Well done to  JASMINE RUDDELL 8A2!

 

*Important Note:

This was a well-loved book that had been read by many, but had also been damaged (missing pages) and was ready to be retired and replaced.

We gave it a new life as the shredded book contest, and will recycle it after we are done.

Skip the Queue – September

Everyone hates waiting in queues! Especially when you are hungry!

Some of our pupils found a simple way to avoid this.

All they had to do was log on to Accelerated Reader and successfully quiz on at least two books during September, gaining a score of 85% or higher, on books at their individual book level.

If they met these criteria, then their name went into the draw to win a Skip the Queue Pass (valid 1^st – 12^th Oct):

WINNERS DRAWN THIS MONTH WERE:

Lucia 8A1; Louis 8A2; Molly-Rose 8B2; Abigail 8B2; Harry 8B4;

Calum 9A1; Alasdair 9A2; Molly 9B1; Jack 9B1; Brigita 9B3        

Matthew 10A1; Tyler 10A1; Max 10A1; Khagaraja 10A2; Archie 10B1

(All names are drawn at random – a maximum of five per year group)

Well done!