Literacy Week, Monday 24th of February to Friday 28th of February.

This week Bishopstown Community School illuminated minds by celebrating the first Literacy Week in Bishopstown Community School. The ability to read, speak, write and listen helps students communicate and learn in all their subjects.  As Barrack Obama said, “it is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible”.

Literacy week brought blue skies and Treat Your Shelf stepped into spring with a visit from Lavie and Sarah to talk about their beautifully named creative zine magazine called Blaithi, meaning ‘little flower’. This dynamic duo brought infectious energy and their long list of achievements demonstrated to the book club that “even the tiniest of flowers can have the toughest roots”, Shannon Mullen. Their undeniable strength and resilience left students with the brave message of “be fearless, connect with other creatives, share, love and grow”. “This book club is great, you are a community”. Sarah and Lavie, a podcast creator and poet were inspiring and it was a positive experience to meet successful creatives from their own localities. In English class students created their own poetry to contribute to the zine and listened to Sarah’s podcast, The Lost Library.

On Tuesday Bishopstown Community School celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as their favourite characters. Jo from Little Women, Clarisse from Percy Jackson and Harry Potter were popular choices. Two teachers dressed as Sherlock Holmes! Fiction and fairy tale came to life in the corridors. A book club member won a prize for best representation of a novel by encouraging second years to dress up as characters from their studied novel, The Outsiders by S.E Hinton. Treat Your Shelf had the following to say, “I thought it was a nice chance for students to express their favourite books”. “I loved the reading relay because it got everyone together, it also got primary school girls in our area”. “World Book Day was really good because it was nice for people to express themselves as their favourite character. In Art class students made their own bookmarkers ready for their next book. In History class book club organised a spelling bee competition. The room was buzzing with excitement as students worked in groups to spell and explain History keywords. Michelangelo and Scriptorium brought us to a tie breaking finale.

Balzac, “reading brings us unknown friends”. On Thursday BCS hosted the school’s first reading relay. Our neighbours from Spriaod Naomh Girls National School came to our school to read with us. The 5th class visitors and BCS students from a range of year groups took over the library, reading nook and our collaborative learning hub from 9.30 to 10.30. Collectively 78 hours and 20 minutes of reading was completed. Mrs Gottstein ended the relay by saying how reading was one of the best adventures any of us could take and broadens our minds and vocabulary.  Literacy week is over for this year but students hope played a part in raising awareness about the importance of literacy and how it is an essential part of inclusive education for everyone. Napoleon once said, “Show me a family of readers and I will show you people who move the world”.

Mrs White and Ms Donnelly