Find out what is happening in our school library

A belated welcome to 2020 from Mr McCallum in the library!  For those of you who I haven't already met my name is Zac McCallum and I'm the School Librarian here at Halswell School.  I'm here to make our library a fun place to be and encourage your children to become life-long readers.  I love to read all sorts of books, from picture books and comics to novels and nonfiction.  I read LOTS so that I can have heaps of great books to recommend to the children, staff and parents at our school.  I organise lots of activities and competitions in the library that make it one of the most exciting places in our school.  I also hold a family event once or twice a term which gives parents and their children a chance to engage in books together and sometimes even meet authors and illustrators.  As well as having the library open at second lunch every day each class visits the library once a week to change their books and hear a story or two.  

Here are some other things that we offer in our library:

- book advice for parents who need help finding some interesting books for their children or books to read aloud

- a range of books written specifically for children with Dyslexia.  Barrington Stoke publish engaging stories for readers of all ages, but they specifically use a Dyslexia-friendly font, wide margins and cream paper especially for dyslexic readers.

- a Parent Library with books on subjects such as learning to read, keeping children safe online, and general parenting advice

- a family account that we can set up so you can borrow extra books for your children

- reading promotions, such as the Hell Pizza Reading Challenge (which starts in late March) and our own Halswell Book Bingo

If you would like to know more about any of these please either come and see me in the library or email me - zac.mccallum@halswell.school.nz

2020 Student Librarians

As always I was flooded with students who wanted to be Student Librarians this year.  There were so many really great applications, with many students having helped in the library already. I have chosen the students that I believe will do a fantastic job and I'm looking forward to working with them throughout the year.  The 2020 Student Librarians are:

Olivia Gordon

Lena Abdinor

Holly Grant

Nathan Grant

Duncan McDonald

Mila Hubbard

Emma Sevier

Annabel Cooke

Hannah Ross

Trent Bowen

Luke Sowman

Sydni Blacktop

Sienna Kay

Finn Annals

Rico Rzoska

Flynn Naysmith

Lachlan Pikia

William Crawford

Nathan Allan

Alyssa Huang

Sam Knight

James Diprose

Monty Francis

Xinyue Zhao

Lucas Moore

Reuben Fone

Pippa Tyrer

Summer Reading returns

If your child hasn't already returned their Summer Reading books that they borrowed over the summer holidays please try to get these back by the end of this week.  Any books that are very overdue block your children from borrowing new books so it is important that these are returned.