Dominican College Sion Hill

A well read school

School Background

Dominican College Sion Hill is one of the longest established girls’ secondary school in Ireland, having opened in 1836.

Sion Hill is a community of students, teachers, parents and Dominican sisters whose aim is to provide our students with experiences which will help them to discover and develop their talents so that they will become positive and mature individuals.

The purpose of all our programmes and structures is to ensure that our students have opportunities to develop academically, spiritually, physically, emotionally and socially.

The beginning of the journey

New space was acquired to

establish a library for the school

The process entailed clearing

out the room

Obtaining donations

Designing the space to be a

user friendly library

Original stages of the library transformation

New library – Early development

Empty shelves to be filled full of books

Transformation

Thanks to the help of the staff,

students, parents and local

libraries

St Thomas’s library became a

well stocked library for all

students to avail of

St Thomas’s Library

St Thomas’s Library

St Thomas’s Library

School Library • Over 8,000 catalogued resources

• Eclipse software

• Students have individual borrower

accounts

• Librarian runs the library from 8:30 – 4:30

• Students volunteer to run the library

• Study space available

School Library• Subject based categories

• Reluctant reader section

• Students are encouraged to

request books, donate

books

• Each donated book

receives a message on the

inside dedicated to the

donator

Second step to becoming a well read school

• With the school library space fully stocked

• We needed the support of students to help to develop the culture of reading throughout the school

Information on the library• Information on the library was distributed to parents through the school

website and notifications

• Students were all registered on the eclipse system and brought up in their tutor groups to be given a tour of the library

• Staff were all trained on the eclipse system to enable them to process loans and returns.

• All resources were catalogued into the eclipse system

• Capacity:

• There are 78 study desks on the right hand side of the library. There are also study benches to accommodate a further 15 students. The reading area will accommodate 25 students. In total over 100 students can be facilitated in the library.

Whole school Student Involvement

• Library Committee

• Book Club

• World Book Week

• Library quiz

• Literacy quiz

• Literacy games

• Book Mark Competition

• Extreme reading competition

• Spelling Bee

• Toast masters

• Design a book cover – cross curricular

• Drop everything and read – Tutor Class

• Students have individual library accounts

• End of year prize to the student who has

read the most books

• One book, one year

• MS Readathon

Library Committee

• The library committee was set up in 2014 to promote our new reading space

Mission Statement of the library Committee

• The Library Committee is dedicated to bringing the joy of reading to the entire school. The aim of the library committee is to promote the use of St Thomas’ library through encouraging all students to avail of a quiet study space, to broaden their horizons through books, to explore their imagination through fiction and to develop their love for reading

• A representative from each year is elected to the library committee at the beginning of the school year.

Library Committee• The students have to apply for the position and are then voted

for by their year group

• The selected members are announced at an assembly and are presented with a badge to wear

• Library committee have their own email address setup –library@sionhillcollege.ie, any emails sent to this address are received by all members of the committee and the co-ordinating teacher

• The library committee meet once a month to plan for upcoming events and have a notice board in the school to promote all reading related events. Minutes are taken at this meeting and emailed to the committee, coordinating teacher and the school principal

Library Committee 15/16

Library committee members

badge

Library Committee

• At the end of the school year the Library Committee co-ordinator presents to the entire school all of the activities that the library committee undertook during the year

• The members are then individually presented with a certificate in front of the assembly

• The library committee have their own notice board with details of events, book reviews, book club meetings and new titles that the members have added to the library

Library Committee Notice Board

Main activities of the library Committee

• Encourage reading participation throughout the whole school

• To link in with the co-ordinating teacher in monthly meetings

• Assist in the running of Junior, Intermediate and Senior book club

• Promote a reading culture amongst their peers

• Organise World Book Week

World Book Week

Commences at 8am

Committee design a

banner to be hung at the

school gates to create a

hype surrounding the day

Committee members

stand at the front gate

distributing world book

day tokens to all students

World Book Week• All English classes on World Book Day are designated reading classes

• Committee members organise a literacy quiz that all year groups take part in

• Questions take place during the day over the intercom, students must answer all questions correctly to be in with a chance to win a prize.

• Toast masters

• Literacy games are available to play in the library during lunch –scrabble, kahoot, say the word, taboo

• Spelling Bee

• Debating all take place at lunch time during World Book Week

World Book Week

Book QuizToast masters

World Book Week

Literacy GamesSpelling Bee

Book Club

• Book club runs every 6 weeks within the school term

• The book club members sign up on the first week of September and attend the meetings

• There are 3 separate book clubs

• Junior – 1st and 2nd year

• Intermediate – 3rd and 4th year

• Senior – 5th and 6th year

• There is a box for book club suggestions at the classroom door and slips that are colour coded specific to each book club. Students can make recommendations that are then voted on at the meeting.

Book club

Notice board with reviews and

recommended reading lists.

Book Club

Suggestion box for Book club

Colour coordinated slips

Bring a book, get a bookDon’t judge a book by its cover book swap

Prizes for book reviews held during the school year

Prizes are always literature

based

• Book vouchers

• Books

Extreme Reading

• Committee members organised an extreme reading competition open to the whole school and the staff

• Entries were emailed to the library committee email address

• Entries were printed in displayed around the school

• Student winner and staff winner were announced at the school awards ceremony. Winners received book vouchers

• A slide show of all entries was on display.

Extreme reading Entries

Extreme Reading Entries

Extreme Reading

Design a bookmark Competition

• The competition was open to all students within the school

• The winner had their design printed onto a bookmark for distribution throughout the entire school

Transition Year – English module

• Read and Research

• The English transition year classes are given a project to complete entitled ‘Read and Research’.

• The project requires the students to read 3 pieces of work either by the same author, surrounding the same genre, dealing with similar themes and they must present their findings on this reading practice

• Similarities throughout the texts, style of writing, recommendations etc.

• Students are given designated library classes to read their texts and complete the project.

MS Readathon

• All years were encouraged to take part in the MS Readathon

• A total of €800 was raised for the MS Society of Ireland

Staff Involvement

• Extreme reading staff competition

• Tutor reading classes in the library

• Staff members wearing labels with the name of the

book they are reading on World Book Week

• Whole school involvement in DEAR

Mr. Fitzpatrick

Teacher Involvement

• World Book week – Teachers wore labels with the name of the book they were currently reading

• Each class has a scheduled tutor class on a weekly basis. Once a month, the tutor takes their class to the school library. All students have a barcode for their individual account

• Students and the tutor spend this class reading together

• Drop everything and read is promoted throughout the entire school, staff included

• Staff members attend book club meetings.

• Staff involvement in all activities run through the library Committee

Parental Involvement

• Book club

• Blog page for school book clubs

• Parent and Student reading exercises

• Reflections about their positive experiences

Parent Involvement• To increase parent involvement and strengthen the link between

reading and the home the second years were given a task to complete over the mid term break

• They had to record themselves reading a section of their play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with a parent at home.

• The recordings were emailed to the class teacher to be played for the class

• The parents were then given yellow post it notes to write a positive message about their experience of reading with their daughter

• These post-its were stuck to the back of the teacher’s door under the heading ‘ 2nd year, parent and student Reading Reflections’

• The overall feedback from both the parents and the students was extremely positive

Parental Involvement

• Romeo and Juliet parent reading sound clips

Parental Involvement

READING REFLECTIONS FROM PARENTS

Parent Involvement• Link to recommended reading list for both Senior and Junior

cycle was compiled by the students on the Parent Teacher Association page and the school website

• Schoology page dedicated to each book club where all the members can post comments about the book of the month

• Parents can join the page and become involved

Book club schoology page

Community Involvement

• Local Libraries

• Local bookstores

• Author Visits

• Book club with the convent

• Book drop donations

Community InvolvementA school tour of the local library

• A tour to Blackrock local library was arranged for the students of 1st

and 2nd year

• Students got a detailed tour of the library, met the librarian for a questions and answer session and filled out membership forms to receive library cards.

Community InvolvementRegular donations for the local libraries

• Blackrock library are regularly in contact with the Library Committee coordinating teacher in relation to regular donations for the school library

• Every term the school library gets a new collection of unwanted books

Community InvolvementLocal book shop visit

• 1st and 2nd years also visited Dubray book store locally on World Book Day with their vouchers that they received that morning

Community InvolvementAuthor Visits

• Sarah Crossan and Louise O’Neill both visited the school library for a questions and answers session with the students about their latest novels

Community InvolvementReaching out to the local Primary Schools

• The students put together a letter for the local primary schools encouraging them to read

• Students went back to former primary schools, distributed the letter to each class and had the winning bookmark that was printed to hand out to every student within their primary schools in an effort to encourage the younger generation to read

• Also to bring together the parents, the school and the students, a representative from the PTA also visited local feeder schools with the book marks for students and the letter of encouragement about the magic of reading.

Community InvolvementBook club with the convent

• Members of the book club invited the Dominican Sisters from the Convent on Cross Avenue to join with them in a book club to celebrate the 180 years of Dominican Education in Sion Hill.

• The sisters of the Dominican College will engage in book clubs with the students from September onwards as part of a new initiative going forward to strengthen our community involvement through literature

Improvements since undertaking this well read adventure• We have developed a new library.

• Encouraged reading throughout the school through innovative and exciting activities.

• Established a library committee to promote reading across the entire school.

• Developed links with local book stores and libraries.

• Invited authors to the school for question and answer sessions.

• Strengthened our link with the community through inviting the Dominican Convent for book clubs

• Strengthened our link with parents to encourage reading at home.

• Got full staff involvement.

• Fostered a reading environment throughout the entire school to carry on throughout the community and at home.

Dominican College Sion Hill

A Well Read School