School has been back a few weeks now and everyone is, hopefully, settling into their new routines. At the moment there is a lot of buzz about the Rugby World Cup and it does provide a good opportunity for displays about the tournament, the game itself, the game's core values and also the countries involved.
I wrote a blog on display ideas and you can read it here. A lot of the resources seem to be aimed at primary schools but:
• the England Rugby Website has a small section dedicated to secondary schools and
• The Literacy Trust has published a Love Rugby:Love Reading Toolkit which, whilst aimed more at primary, can be used for ideas suitable to teenagers.
• Finally, rugby is not just a sport for men - read about the England women's team here.
Keeping teenagers reading - some ideas:
Now is a good time to try and ensure that children entering secondary school don't stop reading. Many will have had a structured approach to reading in their primary school so that, even if they aren't keen readers, they have been encouraged to read or their reading has been closely monitored. So what can be done to ensure that reading remains a habit - a good habit - rather than something they can now safely avoid? Some schools schedule library lessons, others use Accelerated Reader or similar systems and others use English lessons. Whatever system the school uses, the most important thing is to ensure that children are aware of what books/magazines/papers the library has and what new books are out. Ways you can do this include:
- • keeping abreast of trends - such as the Rugby World Cup or upcoming film releases: Maze Runner has just come out, in October there is Macbeth and Goosebumps (based on the R L Stine books) and the new James Bond and the last of the Hunger Games films are out in November. I find this information out by searching on the internet but also by eavesdropping - it's the best way of finding out what teenagers are into these days!
- making sure Year 7's can see books that appeal to their age group,
- make sure magazines and newspapers are well displayed and cover a variety of interests
- keeping up with new book releases. My latest book reviews are here and I have also written a couple of blogs on my summer reading and you can find the blog about my planned readeing here and my actual reading here.
- Finally - don't forget new books in a series. Whilst I do not read every book in a series, I try to keep my list of YA books in a series up to date. New books recently out as part of a series (where I have reviewed an earlier book but not the latest release) include:
Gods and Warriors by Michelle Paver and
Wells and Wong Mysteries by Robin Stevens.
Also look out for the final book in The Enemy series by Charlie Higson due out on 29th October and
the second book in the new Robert Muchamore series Rock Wars due out on October 1st.
One last thing - if you missed the list issued by TES of 100 fiction books teenagers should read - you can find the link to it, and my comments, in this blog.
Wishing you a happy first term
Chiara