Today, we had the privilege of attending the final award ceremony for the Warwickshire Secondary Book Award.  A group of those students who have been taking part travelled to Kings High Hall at Warwick School to see the winning author announced. This year’s winner was Kimberly Whittam for her book ‘Quiet Storm’. Our pupils were extremely pleased as this was the author we had selected as our winner here at Etone.

 The four authors who attended gave inspirational speeches to the pupils covering many topics. Etone pupils really did our school proud with both the attention they gave to each of the authors and their impeccable behaviour. Well done! To top this event off they our pupils were also able to speak to the authors and get copies of their books signed for Etone Library. What a wonderful way to come to the end of this award.

Again, it has been another busy term here in Etone Library. A total of over 1,100 books have been loaned.  Some of most popular books have included, The Lottie Brooks series, Football Superstars, Little People, Big Dreams The Dork Diaries, and a new addition to our library, The Sad Ghost Club.

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We were recently extremely lucky to be visited by Dr Anjna Chouhan, editor of Shakespeare’s First Folio All The Plays – Children's Edition. She gave a fascinating talk to Year 11 about why she wanted to collate Shakespeare's plays and how she wanted to make Shakespeare more accessible to children; she also outlined her research processes. Our year 11 class were enthralled and asked her some brilliant questions.

Anjna also brought a very special item that will be on display in our Library until the end of February, Shakespeare’s First Folio Facsimile. The First Folio is the first published collection of Shakespeare's plays, produced seven years after his death, titled 'Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies'.  This edition grouped the plays into those categories—comedies, histories, and tragedies—for the first time.

This first folio facsimile has visited 26 libraries across Warwickshire. Etone College is the only School that has the privilege of hosting this in our library.  The word ‘folio’ comes from the Latin word folium, which means leaf or sheet. Only 235 copies of the First Folio have been found around the world!  Etone pupils are invited to come along, have a look at the folio and annotate any section of the folio which has meaning for them e.g. maybe the first Shakespeare play they read.

Dr Chouhan commented, “Thank you for your kind hospitality today. I enjoyed meeting you and hearing all about the work you do with library lessons at Etone College. I had a wonderful morning, and the students were a thorough pleasure to speak with.” 

We are delighted with the engagement with reading that pupils in Years 7&8 have shown this academic year. In their lessons, they are reading and quizzing and as a result their reading  is progressing. 

To celebrate their achievements, we are rewarding the top 4 classes with a trip to Nuneaton Library through our partnership with them. Pupils will be accompanied to the library during an English lesson to take part in a scavenger exploring all that the library has to offer. There will prizes for the teams who work the best. 

On 6^th December, we rewarded our first three Word Millionaires.  

Yusuf, Freddie, and Tymon in Year 8 were presented with their certificates, and their chosen books in Etone's library by Mr Evers (Deputy Head), Mr Chauhan (Deputy Head), Mrs Leftwich-Lloyd (Assistant Head / Reading Lead), and Mrs Whitmore (LIbrarian).  We are super proud of all three pupils and have challenged them to reach their next million, and 5,000,000 by the end of the year.

As part of our Reading offer our pupils have been busy taking part in their Accelerated reading programme.

We are thrilled to announce the first five pupils who have achieved the Word Millionaire status! With prizes and rewards on the way we can’t wait to update you with some more in future.

Tymon - 1, 330, 648

Freddie - 1, 126,499

Denis - 1, 358, 793

Yusuf - 1, 084, 340

Dexter – 1, 150, 031

Ben Davis is an author currently living and working in Staffordshire with his wife, son, and wimpy dog. Ben Davis writes funny books for older children and teenagers including the Joe Cowley series, My Embarrassing Dad’s Gone Viral and Make Me Awesome.   On Tuesday, 26th November, pupils in Years 8 and 9 were treated to workshops with him in the Hall.  

Alongside book readings, and creating characters with Ben, Etone pupils asked inciteful questions including How old were you when you started writing?  Would you like to make a play of one of your books?  What is your favourite book for teenagers? And Who inspires you?

They particularly enjoyed Ben telling them about including his embarrassing family members and weaving them into the stories he writes, as well as hearing about how an author is paid.

This week our Book Fair has been in town, sharing a selection of the latest reads to support our pupils in accessing the very best literature has to offer. Across the week every pupil has had the opportunity to browse, select and purchase a book to grow their bookshelf. Mrs Whitmore has done a fantastic job of showcasing some of the top reads and supporting pupils in making their selection.

It has been especially nice to see so many parents pop into the school at the end of the day to browse with their child and make the joys of reading a family event.

Additionally, a percentage of all proceeds from the bookfair go back into Etone to use to further support our reading and literacy development of our pupils. A big thank you to Scholastic and all parents who have supported buying a book.

To find out more about our reading provision at Etone please follow this link: https://www.etonecollege.co.uk/reading

A massive well done to our six prize winners from our 'Wanted - Villains' competition; the standard was very high!   All received a £5 for our Scholastic Book Fair.

We have, this week, our first two 'Word Millionaires' in Year 8

Tymon in Griffin House

Denis in Centaur House

This is a stunning achievement, especially so early in the year!  All millionaires will be awarded towards the end of term.

Also, in our House Reading Competition, Dragon have gone back into the lead with a stunning 229 books read.  This is as we go into our weeks of 'long reads' in which we encourage pupils to challenge themselves by reading a longer book, all pupils chose beautiful bookmarks to make sure that they don't lose their place!