Duffryn High School, Newport

Shadowing organized by Judy Shingler,
Learning Resource Centre Manager
Report from 1999

Introduction

This was our second year of shadowing the Library Association Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards. It was with enthusiasm and anticipation that both staff and students eagerly awaited the announcement of the two shortlists for 1999.

In preparation for the shadowing we formed a group of interested members of staff to structure ideas and to build on last year's success.

It was agreed to follow last year's plan, which included: -

a) A Library group

b) Special Needs classes

c) English classes

d) One feeder school - Duffryn Junior

And to expand by including the following:-

a) Inviting the Director of Education and the Manager of the Schools Library Service to officially launch the 1999-shadowing scheme.

b) To ask two additional feeder schools to take part, a special school and a sight impaired student.

c) To ask staff to tape the stories of the Kate Greenaway books for the special needs, sight impaired student and our ethnic students.

d) An Art class to evaluate the Kate Greenaway illustrations.

e) A Drama group to work with one of the titles on the Carnegie shortlist.

Once all the books had arrived from Peters Bookselling Service Ltd and our own Schools Library Service we were able to proceed with all our plans. We were fortunate to have twelve sets of the Kate Greenaway books and eight sets of the Carnegie books.

Official Launch

To get the scheme off to a good start and to bring together as many interested parties from our school and local community an official launch was held on 26th May 1999 - the same day as "Going for Gold" was being held at Birmingham Central Library. Our event was held in the new Learning Resource Centre. Displays including posters, reviews, and information on the authors, illustrators and books were set up. All the books were arranged on the tables. On arrival guests, staff and students enjoyed light refreshments.

Our guests were: -

Our Year 12 students paired with the younger children to enjoy and talk about the books. Many of our own staff attended, plus teachers from the other schools.

Mrs Judy Shingler, Learning Resource Centre Manager, gave a brief outline of how Duffryn High School shadowed the Awards last year. She extended an invitation to the children to borrow a set of the books to use in their own school, to send in their reviews, drawings and paintings and to take part in the paired reading with the sixth form students.

The children and their 'buddies' spent the afternoon looking at the wonderful illustrations, reading and discussing the books. They were able to use the Internet to view the Library Association web site, which showed Duffryn High School's report of last years shadowing and the reports from the other schools. The Special Needs students listened to the tapes while following the story in the book

The success of the launch was very apparent and it was clear that all the students were willing and enthusiastic about joining in our Shadowing scheme for 1999.

Library Group
Report from Judy Shingler, Learning Resource Centre Manager

The Library group included students from Years 7, 8, 9,10 and 12. Since the Launch they have been very busy reading, writing reviews, and discussing the titles in readiness for selecting a winner for each Award. The enthusiasm showed by the younger children for "Skellig" and "Fly, Cherokee, Fly" was amazing, as soon as a copy of the book was returned it would go straight back out again. It was particularly pleasing to see so many boys recommending these two titles to their friends.

Many of the students took part in last year's shadowing and the experience has certainly helped them to be well organised and focused on the 1999 titles.

The Learning Resource Centre is open throughout the day from 8am -5.3Opm on Monday -Thursday and until 5pm on Fridays giving the students access before school, during break, lunchtime and after school. Their confidence has improved and they now give their opinions of the titles freely while returning their books. This is in addition to the lively group discussions. The number of written reviews has increased and again they have automatically given them in when exchanging their books.

The Manager of the Schools Library Service, Angela Noble, has been very supportive, loaning five sets of the Carnegie books and nine sets of the Kate Greenaway titles. Angela has also attended an entertaining discussion by the Library group to hear their views of all the books on the shortlist.

Shadowing the Kate Greenaway Award with Special Needs Pupils
Report from Jan Ashworth, Special Needs and
Cross Curricular Projects

As the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway children's book awards have grown in stature and recognition, so too has Duffryn High School's involvement in this wonderfully stimulating and exciting project. It's my second "shadowing" and I was keen to get going for the sake of the students. It was that time of year again - lots of interest, piles of enthusiasm and loads of questions: -

"What are the books this year Miss?"
"Can I take them home to read to my nipper again Miss?"
"Can I type my report out on the computer?"

I teach Special Needs students and they don't always have the confidence to ambush me in the corridor with work related requests, but this was great. I was very pleased that our students were motivated and raring to go and yet I felt that we could use the project to reach even more young people so that they too could experience the pleasure and pride derived from taking part in such a challenging project. Last year we worked with Duffryn Junior, one of our feeder schools, this year we wanted to be even more inclusive.

Feeder Schools

We invited two other feeder schools, a special school (six 11 year olds who had virtually no reading skills) and a student who had no sight, to join us in the "Shadowing". The Year 12 "buddies" (readers, listeners and scribes) were as keen as ever to help with the scheme and made suggestions as to how we could help every student to access the "Kate Greenaway" books. We decided to record the stories in English and in Urdu with the help of the English Faculty and the EAL department.

The books were launched on a very warm Wednesday afternoon - the Learning Resource Centre was buzzing with students and a number of staff who had popped in because it had been "so worthwhile last year." They wanted to be "Greenaway Groupies" too!

My abiding impression of the afternoon was the sheer delight and sense of achievement experienced by the children: solemn and wide eyed with interest and curiosity one moment and chuckling like mad the next.

Many students enjoyed using the computers in tandem with the reading books -reading and discussion about the stories followed by a report word-processed on the computer. The young students were fascinated by the Carnegie Greenaway web site, and they flicked quickly through the pages looking for a mention of their own school or different ways in which they could participate in the competition.

However, gaining access to the readers and finding ways of putting thoughts into words was not as easy for some as it was for others. Although the students from a minority ethnic background spoke English they were surprised and thrilled to hear the stories taped in Urdu. Their faces lit up when they heard the first words and they were able to help us with translation. They felt that the status of their language had been raised and that it provided them with a new angle on the story. They were also really pleased that the EAL assistant had gone to the trouble of doing this for them.

The students from Westfield Special School had a great time. We kicked off with orange juice and biscuits and then got down to work. The students enjoyed the illustrations in the books and were keen to point out their favourite drawings. Three of the boys were eager to have a look at the computers and they were helped by some of our Year 10 Key Skills students who did a marvellous job of helping our Westfield students to feel at home.

Ceinwen Williams travelled from Cwmbran to visit us that afternoon. Ceinwen has very little sight but she had promised to listen to the tapes so that she could write a report using Braille. She enjoyed some of the recordings on the day; however, she said that she would have appreciated a few more sound effects next time.

As the afternoon wore on, the "Greenaway Gathering" gained momentum. Students argued over which book they preferred and even the staff started to take sides. However, two little boys from one of the feeder schools had loads of ideas but were feeling frustrated at not being able to put their thoughts down on paper; they enjoyed books but writing had proved to be rather an arduous process in the past.

A "buddy" took one little boy and I had the other. They were so full of ideas that words tumbled out as they could see their piece of work taking shape on the screen in front of them. My student loved the monkey book as he called it. He particularly enjoyed the two dogs running around the park and he told me about the pictures that made him smile.

"I want to have flowers growing out of the pavement to light up my street".
"I'm like the dog in the picture. I run like the wind when I go to the park"

This young Duffryn student was so pleased with his work that it had to be printed out several times for various members of his family, and signed by the staff who were at the launch that day. Greenaway had given him the confidence to speak out and he had found something to talk about that he felt was worth saying.

I felt really exhilarated that afternoon; students with varying backgrounds, needs and educational aspirations had come together to pore over and discuss the merits of the Kate Greenaway shortlist. They had used the latest technology to produce their initial responses and browsed the web to take in more information about shadowing - books and computers complementing each other perfectly.

The buddies and the students have come up with even more ideas for next year. Here are three tempting lines of thought:

• Younger siblings brought to school so that they can read the stories with older brothers and sisters.
• Sessions for parents on how to read stories with their children.
• Forging links with other schools so that students can e-mail their ideas and comments on the "shadowing" project.

Kate Greenaway would have been so proud if she had known the excitement her name generates in Duffryn High School every summer - we can't wait for next year.

Shadowing the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards in English Classes: 1
Report by Malcolm Summers, Head of the English Faculty

For the second year running we, in Duffryn High School's English Department, have been delighted to assist in shadowing the Kate Greenaway and Carnegie awards. The success of last year's event produced a groundswell of enthusiasm, which has lifted us higher and carried us further when dealing with this year's very welcome collection of books. More teachers have been involved, more classes targeted, more activities carried out and more links established with our feeder primary schools and local special schools.

Many of the students who attend our school are not "natural" readers of fiction and standards of literacy continue to cause concern. Consequently, we welcome events like the Carnegie and Greenaway awards as they not only provide us with a valuable opportunity to look at high quality books but also allow us to do it in a very real context. The fact that we are "competing" against the professional judges adds an element to the activities which, I'm sure, causes many teenagers, boys in particular, to approach the various tasks more seriously and to adopt a more critical attitude.

Although we have used the Carnegie selection in classrooms, the Greenaway's focus on illustration and the accessibility that that offers to reluctant readers who are sometimes daunted by text-heavy pages, has meant that these books have been heavily used.

The most popular activity was to set up a mini (and high speed!) version of the official competition. Classes were divided up into small groups and given just over five minutes with each book. Towards the end of the hour-long lesson, each group was expected to report back to the class as a whole and announce their winner. We then decided upon the winning book for the class as a whole. This activity generated some excellent speaking and listening. Groups had to sort themselves out, negotiate definitions of a successful illustrated children's book, discuss the concept of different audiences, analyse the different elements on the pages in front of them and work to a very tight deadline before presenting formally to the class. The discussions were always interesting and sometimes inspired as students were forced into looking closely at detail and considering this in relation to audience and the author's purpose. I was particularly interested in responses to my favourite, Anthony Browne's "Voices in the Park", as first one and then more of the group saw the running image of the hats.

The visual appeal of the illustrated books, combined with their hidden depths has allowed us to use them with all ages and abilities. Providing a common ground for academic A-level students and reluctant readers in Year nine, for our young adults who are about to leave the school and our eleven-year-olds who have recently arrived. They have also built a bridge between the school and the wider community as, for the second year, we have invited primary schools in for the afternoon and linked our sixth formers with junior pupils. The older students discussed the books with small enthusiastic groups of children in an attempt to find a winner and both parties learned a lot in the process.

The shadowing activities have generated a buzz in the school, a buzz which indicates that despite the seductive charms of new technology children do still care about books and given the right stimuli can be as enthusiastic as their parents and grandparents about stories.

Shadowing the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards in English Classes: 2
Report from Sally Thomas - English Department

Using the seven books nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal, with two year seven forms we formed a judging committee. I rearranged the desks to resemble a board meeting and had seven smaller groups of tables arranged around the room.

We treated it as an oracy exercise, helping to improve the pupils' oracy skills. The 'board meeting' commenced with a discussion about how we would judge the competition. The pupils decided that they would look for the following features:

• overall attractiveness.
  
  
• the positioning of the illustrations whether the illustrations reflected what was going on in the story at that moment
  
  
• whether the illustration reflected the themes of the book whether they aided understanding of the text

Using the above criteria, the class were split into groups of three. Each group had a short time with each book to judge if the above criteria was met. After all of the books had been reviewed by each group we came back together to share findings.

On the whole, it was felt that all of the books were beautifully illustrated. 'Come on Daisy' was a particular favourite.

7GC voted 'Zagazoo' as their choice for the medal, recognising the illustrator as being the same one who did the Roald Dahl books!

7JA voted 'Pumpkin Soup' to be their choice for the medal. They found the illustrations to be more entertaining.

I also read the opening three chapters of 'Fly, Cherokee, Fly' to a year 8 group. We analysed how effective an opening to a novel it was.

We looked at developing a character. They felt able to identify with Daryl and his family. They thought that he was a good-natured, caring boy while his friend, Gary Taylor, was also a likeable character but more of a prankster.

We also looked at narrative technique. Many of the boys were interested in the story. They felt that it got straight to the point and were eager to continue to find out what happened. They were able to describe what had happened, reflect upon their thoughts about the story and speculate as to what they thought would happen. There were also humorous touches, which they enjoyed.

The girls, on the other hand, were not so taken with it. Some felt that it was boring although they livened up when the discussion was extended to real life experiences and they could identify with a time when they had rescued a bird.

The class liked the way that the plot moved along quickly and that the story was relatively easy for them to follow.