As the year draws to a close we reflect back on what has happened. We began the year with a bang with many students eager to read the books that had been returned the previous year. Eyeing the books they wanted and shooting straight into the library as school started.

During the COVID period, I personally got to speak to many parents and am delighted that they now know who I am and the relationships we built during an interesting time of year.  The students were eager to get back to school and begin borrowing books again. Some managed to stock up before lock down.

We would like to thank the parents who have supported us this year by helping their children return their books regularly. We shelve over 2000 per week and to see students faces when they see a book but it is in quarantine. We changed our system to move the recently released books out and more accessible to our students. There were some books that I don’t think made it back onto the shelves until we closed borrowing for stocktake.

A big thank you needs to go to the volunteers who came in and helped us shelve and cover new books. Our Library Captain Sofia was amazing helping in the library and running some of the Tech Crew duties as well.

Our biggest thank you goes to the Library Monitors and Library Helpers. These are students who come to the library during both breaks, put on their lanyards and are ready to help the teacher librarians and students. The monitors have undergone their full training and know how to shelve books in the Junior Fiction, Quick Fiction, Senior Fiction and Non-fiction areas and know how to return and issue books. Our helpers are learning the ropes and are in training to become monitors. Our students know that if they need help or simply need someone to read to them or play a game they can go to someone wearing a lanyard. Our monitors and helpers rotate so that they get a balance of free time and library time. This is often their very first opportunity to achieve our school motto of Service before Self. Well done team we could not have done it without you!

To all our avid readers have a wonderful break and don’t forget that you can all access the public libraries.

ICAS report

We would like to congratulate Andrey, year 3, who won not one but two ICAS medals this year. He won gold medals for his results in Digital Technologies and Science. Students with the top score in each subject in each year level are awarded a medal and a medal winners certificate. Well done Andrey!