Duffield Library Code

The main purpose of the Library is to provide a quiet environment for those who wish to study or read quietly and undisturbed by others. Therefore please be considerate and only come in if you are happy to respect the needs of others and conform to the requirements of the library.

Group work can become noisy and disruptive. Work in pairs may be acceptable as long as nobody else can hear. No more than two people should be working at one computer.

Computers should be used exclusively for work. No games, no Social networking, no e-mail except to collect or send work between school and home.

This means that any essential talk should be conducted in a quiet voice so that only the person spoken to can hear.

Particularly at busy times everyone in the Library should be here to work, read or play chess. It is not a social area.

Mrs Friel is sole arbiter of acceptability of noise levels and behaviour.

If you are asked to leave the library you are expected to go without argument or delay – even if you think it unfair.  

Life is unfair!

All Hallows Read

All Hallows, or Hallowe'en on October 31st is a good day to read a spooky story.

And why not join thousands of people around the globe to give a spooky story to a friend.

All Hallows Read - Neil Gaiman

You could start with Neil's own award-winning The Graveyard Book.

Some more ideas for spooky reading:

Charlie Higson - The Enemy series

M R James - Ghost Stories

Darren Shan - The Vampire's Apprentice, or The Saga of Larten Crepsley series

Joseph Delaney - The Spok's Apprentice series

Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Imagination

I-Spy Competition

To celebrate books and reading on World Book Day - April 23rd - the library is holding another competition.


Members of KEGS Staff have been caught on camera reading a book that they loved when they were in their early teens (for some of us that was a very long time ago).  The photos will be on display near their teaching/work area around the school.


All you have to do to win a prize is spot and identify as many you can and hand a list to Mrs Gray in the Library by the end of Friday 27th April.


Coincidentally two staff members have chosen a book by the best-known authors who were born and died on 23rd April.


As you may not know all the staff by name we've helped to identify both them and the book they are reading on the photo.

Kids' Lit Quiz

I am currently testing our Year 8s to find out who is going to represent KEGS in the Regional round of the Kids' Lit Quiz which will be taking place on Tuesday 15th November. I'm hoping to take two teams this year, and I'm sure everyone will wish them the best of luck.
KLQ website

36582: the journal of a deportee, by Maurice Cordonnier.

Maurice Cordonnier worked for the French Railways, well placed for his other work as a French Resistance saboteur. In April 1944 he was denounced to the Germans and deported to the Neuengamme concentration camp. By some miracle he survived, seeing many of his friends die, and wrote this account of his experiences shortly after his repatriation. This new translation of his book was published this month.

If anyone would like a copy of the book, which sells at £9.99, they can contact me in the library library@kegs.org.uk, or Mrs Hampson in the French department, who is the daughter of Monsieur Cordonnier.

Year 7 Champion Readers

Apologies to the many readers who read their own books or borrow from the Public Library - to select the best readers of the year so far I have simply looked at the library records of borrowing.

The champion readers (so far) are:

7H      Akshayan
7M     David
7S      Anurag
7T      Anderson

Can it be a coincidence that three of them have names beginning with A?  At the end of the year I'll be looking for the Champion of Champions, but this could already be decided - one of the above has already read more than twice Mr Gove's 50 books a year!

Jameel of 7H also deserves a special mention - if he'd been in another form he would also have been a winner, and has also read more than 50 books so far this year.

KEGS' Lit Quiz - Year 7 round

And the winners are .....

7S

Scores were:

7S                 55 points
7T                 52.5 points
7H                 43 points
7M                 32.5 points

Days We'll Remember All Our Lives, by Steve Little

The Library now has copies of Steve Little's new book for sale. If you want to know what life at KEGS was like in the 1960s you need a copy of this book.
Contact Mrs Gray at library@kegs.org.uk for further details.

"More Than Just a Life", by Steve Little

Former KEGS student Steve Little has published a book "More Than Just a Life" which is on sale with Amazon for £14.99. He has generously donated a copy to the Library. The story is set in World War 1 and tells of a shell-shocked soldier arrested and court-martialled for desertion.

 

KEGS' Lit Quiz

The Year 8 round of the KEGS' Lit Quiz was held in the Library today. Despite other attractions most of the team members made it to the Library. The results are:
8H                            23 points
8M                           31.5 points
8S                            36 points
8T                            40.5

Therefore 8T are declared the winners. 8S deserve special praise as they were a two-man team, whereas the other teams had their full quota of four.
The next round, I hope, will be a Year 7 form round. And the final round will be the winners from Year 7 against 8T.
And I hope that we will be able to form one or two teams to take part in the International Kids' Lit Quiz in November 2011.

Booktrust Teenage Book Prize 2010

The shortlist for 2010 was announced on September 7th.


Booktrust Teenage Book Prize 2010 shortlist

Book of the Month - Alex's Adventures in Numberland

"Maths can be difficult, says Alex Bellos in this wonderful book, but it can also be inspiring, accessible and creative. If approached properly it can be fun, funny and truly fascinating. Those who skip maths miss out on one of the greatest achievements of the human race". 

From the Independent, one of many reviewers to recommend this 5-star book.

Also recommended by Mr Johnson, we now have a copy of this book in the Library, just waiting to be borrowed and read.

To find out just how fascinating the subject can be go to YouTube where there are some great videos such as Zombie Multiplication. 

  

Time Machines - Who reads What?

Many thanks to all the Staff who were cajoled into posing with their Favourite "Time Machines". In the end I managed to catch 53 of them. Following is the list of Staff and the books they chose.

Miss Benson. Homer: The Odyssey


Mr Berger. Brogan: Kennedy

Mr Bishop. Francis: Requiem

Mrs Breen. Austen: Pride and Prejudice

Mrs Broster. McCarthy: The Road

Mrs Brown. Tolstoy: War and Peace

Mr Burcher. Gilmore: Alice in Quantumland.

Mrs Cairns. Meyer: Eclipse

Canteen Staff

    Irresistible chocolate

    Fletcher:Dear Boy: The Life of Keith Moon.

    Palin: Going Rogue

    Keyes: Anybody Out There?

    Hansel and Gretel

    Ridpath: Free to Trade

    Clancy: Acts of War

    Holy Bible

Mr Carter. Dostoevsky : The Brothers Karamazov

Ms Cleave. Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

Mr Crook: Vaughan: Calling the Shots

Mr Wilson. Fingleton: Brighly Fades the Don

Mrs Exell. Eco: the Name of the Rose

Mrs Friel. Faulks: Birdsong

Mr Green. Hutchinson: The Hour

Dr Greenwood. McEwen: Atonement

Mr Hall. Gribbin: The Universe

MrHarding The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee

Herr Hierzer Regener: Herr Lehmann

Mr Lecouteur Great Zimbabwe

Mrs Mepham Tom’s Midnight Garden

Mme Midroit Something in Japanese

Ms Moore Joyce: Dubliners

Mr Newman The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Mr Oxford Eddings: Magician’s Gambit

Dr Pearson Conrad: Heart of Darkness

Dr Perrott Mantel: Wolf Hall

Mr Perrotton Obama: Dreams From My Father

Mrs Purkiss Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet

Mr Rackham Byatt: The Children’s Book

Dr Riley Mackay: Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air.

Mrs Rowe Lansing: Endurance: Shackleton’s incredible Voyage

Mr J Russell Sophocles: Antigone

Mme Shearman Roquebert: L’Epopee Cathare

Mr Sherrington McCourt: Angela’s Ashes

Mrs Singh Finley: Economy and Society in Ancient Greece.

Site Team

    Seckel: Incredible visual illusions

    PC PRO

    Ryan: Outbreak

Ms Smith-Lothian Schlink: The Reader

Mrs Spence Mitchell: Cloud Atlas

Mr Thomlinson The Mayor of Casterbridge

Mr Torrie Brecht: Leben des Galilei

Ms Turtle Juster: The Phantom Tolbooth

Mrs Ward Pratchett: Thief of Time

Mrs Weiner Adiche: Half of a Yellow Sun

And prizes for the competition were won by Nile Painter and William Skelton

UNESCO World Book Day Time Machine Treasure Hunt

Around the school over the next week you'll find around 40 pictures of staff reading one of their favourite books.

All you have to do is spot as many of them as possible - you probably won't find them all - and hand in to he library your list of who's reading what by the end of Thursday 6th May. Time Machines are notoriously unreliable and there are extra points if you can add which time or place the book should have taken its reader to - for instance Goodnight Mister Tom would take you to World War 2 in the West Country, or the Voyage of the Beagle to the Galapagos Islands in the Nineteenth Century.

Some of the rarer species whose habitats are difficult to find may be located in the Library, and there will be an expert on hand to help identify them.

And you could add which "time machine" you would like to read and why.

There are, of course, prizes for the person or persons who find the most titles and identify their readers.

Local Studies

I spent part of yesterday's non-pupil day creating a new Local Studies section in the Library; now located at the end of the Reference Library next to the stained-glass window. Up to now books about Essex have been scattered all over the Library, but I have gathered them all together in one place.

Books range from wildlife to windmills, Domesday and earlier to 21st century.


Come and browse and find out more about the County you live in.

Year 8 Geography Passport

Year 8s are taking part in a joint Geography/Library reading project. Their aim is to read at least nine magazine articles and books on the subjects of Geography and Travel and write brief reviews to add to the display in the Library (designed by Kate Knight). At each of three levels of achievement they can earn themselves a certificate confirming their status as Day Trippers, Seasoned Travellers or Intrepid Explorers, and we hope along the way they will also learn what a fascinating and exciting subject it is.

New Books in the Library

These are some of the new titles recently added to the Library stock

"That Honourable and Gentleman and Gentlemanlike House", by Tony Tuckwell

Tony Tuckwell was Headmaster of KEGS from 1984 to 1999. This is the second edition of his history of the school from its foundation in 1551 by King Edward VI to 2008.

Copies of this scholarly and readable book can be bought from Mrs Gray in the Library for £14.95. Cheques should be made to KEGS School Fund.

Contact library@kegs.org.uk for more information.

Campaign For The Book

The Campaign for the Book
The Campaign for the Book is a combination of individuals and organisations united around the following Charter.

We, the signatories of this Charter commit ourselves to campaigning for the following:
1. The central place of reading for pleasure in society.
2. A proper balance of book provision and Information Technology in public and school libraries. We welcome the integration of new technologies but believe that they must not erode the key place of books and the need for a healthy and expanding book stock.
3. The defence of public libraries and librarians from attempts to cut spending in a ‘soft’ area.
4. An extension of the role of the school librarian and a recognition of the school library as a key engine of learning. All staff employed in school libraries to have access to appropriate and adequate support and training.
5. The recruitment of more school librarians. It is a national scandal that less than a third of secondary schools has a trained librarian.
6. The defence of the professional status of the public and school librarian. We oppose downgrading. In some places this has reduced librarians’ salaries by up to half.
7. A higher profile for reading for pleasure in schools, including shadowing book awards, inviting authors and illustrators to visit, developing school creative writing magazines.
8. To support the sustainability and future development of Schools Library Service provision nationally.
9. To promote a more positive reading culture in school, in which the reading of whole books is preferred to studying extracts alone

Reading Group News

For summer holiday reading the more ambitious of us are undertaking the recent new translation, by Anthony Briggs, of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Meanwhile for next half term's meeting, which will take place early in July - exact date to be agreed - we have chosen Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay, translated into French as Elle s'appelait Sarah.

We will also be discussing Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies.

For more information about Tatiana de Rosnay and her books look at her website:



And there are some questions to help you think about the book in the Library area of Kegsnet.