Reading Day

It was a hive of activity throughout the school for Reading Day!
We had an early morning assembly to launch the start of the Whistling Duck Book Award event.The teachers then selected one of the books to share with their class to get things going.The children are welcome to sign out the books and take them home for independent reading. The children are keen on collecting the colourful wristbands that come from reading and reviewing a Whistling Duck Book.
They were encouraged to record their independent reading in a log and return it to Mrs. Powery as part of the Surviving With a Good Book incentive program.
We started Buddy Reading today and it was fantastic! The pictures show just how engaged the children were in the experience.The idea is that the children visit another class with a book that they can read independently. The children choose a buddy and sit down to enjoy the story each other has to share. At the Junior level they were provided with a bookmark that had the queues for a perfect buddy reading session including " thick " question suggestions. Over the course of the day I had a lot of feedback from both staff and students about the experience. This is a positive first step to making this a regular segment( 15 mins.,once a week) in the literacy program at North Side.

Joanna Clarke Award Ceremony

Last night we attended the award ceremony for the Joanna Clarke awards - we were one of 5 finalists for this award for innovation and excellence in education. Unfortunately we did not win but our congratulations go to John Gray High School, whose project for raising literacy levels for all school leavers, was the ultimate winner. It was a great pleasure to meet Ms Joanna Clarke herself - a great educator whose passion is still children and their development into sound citizens. The award is sponsored by DMS and we are grateful to them for this opportunity to share our innovative ideas and for their support in pushing the education agenda forward.