St Andrew’s Academy strikes gold for reading

Pupils at a Paisley secondary school have scaled new heights and struck gold with their love of reading.

St Andrew’s Academy has been presented with a Reading Schools Gold Award by the Scottish Book Trust. The accolade recognises the extensive work that has been done by the school to promote a positive reading culture. Pupils celebrated their success with author Simon Lamb, who has been working with the secondary in a special project to encourage youngsters to enjoy and engage with literature - and hill walking.

The gold award highlights the impact of that work, alongside the efforts of school staff and the libraries team at OneRen - which operates the library at St Andrew’s - in expanding the opportunities that pupils have to read. And it is hoped that the enjoyment that they are getting from reading will stay with them throughout their lives.

Derek Allison, Principal Teacher of English at St Andrew’s Academy, said:  “The English team at St Andrew's were delighted to work with our school librarians to achieve the Reading Schools Gold Award.

“It demonstrates how committed we are to fostering a culture of reading for pleasure. This achievement highlights how much work we have done to make reading an integral and joyful part of daily life, empowering our pupils with the lifelong love of books and literacy. “

Reader of the month and class of the month prizes have been presented as part of the initiative to have more regular readers throughout the school. The successful Reading Schools programme, developed by Scotland’s national charity changing lives with reading and writing, supports schools to build a reading culture, where every pupil is encouraged to feed their imagination through books.

Reading for pleasure is central to supporting wellbeing, improving attainment across the curriculum, and boosting critical thinking, creativity, empathy and resilience. St Andrew’s is one of more than 400 schools across Scotland to have been accredited through the programme.

Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust, said: “A Reading Schools accreditation is a fantastic accomplishment for pupils and teachers alike. Achieving this status is a way of demonstrating a school’s commitment to developing vibrant reading cultures and the many benefits this brings.”

The Author Residency Programme with Simon - funded by Scottish Book Trust - enhanced the wider reading project.

Based on the theme of Scaling Mountains, it used his love of Scotland’s hills and munros to inspire poetry - and it even saw a group of S1 pupils make their way up Conic Hill, near Stirling.

English teacher Gary McGhee, one of the project leaders, said: “I have been really impressed by the work the pupils produced under Simon’s guidance, and by the raw ideas they had in response to their experience climbing Conic Hill.

“The imagination they brought to the task and the experiments with language that they captured on the page have resulted in a compelling and powerful collection of poems.”

School librarian Sylwia Grabowska, another of the project leaders, added: “It was an amazing opportunity for our pupils to work closely with the author, to be able to learn about poetry and create poems by themselves.

“Pupils developed writing and  literacy skills and increased understanding of how important creativity is. We had a great time working with Simon and we are extremely grateful to the Scottish Book Trust for providing funding to make this project possible.”

Author Residency Programme funded by Scottish Book Trust

• Renfrewshire’s love of reading will be celebrated once again when the annual Paisley Book Festival - organised by OneRen - takes place from April 25 to 27. For more information, go to paisleybookfestival.com.