Mr Williamson and Mrs Maskell are the School Librarians for Queen’s Hill Primary School. We have two Libraries in the school one for EYFS and KS1 and a research Library for KS2 which offers a wide variety of books and texts with many of the current popular children’s best-sellers, audio books, comic books, annuals and story sacks.
All pupils visit the library during the school day and it is open during lunchtimes to give the children the opportunity to read for pleasure. Small groups of selected children throughout the school spend time with Mr Williamson and Mrs Maskell looking at the pleasure and value of reading and how to interpret authors’ writing strategies into their own individual writing.
We arrange regular visits to our local Costessey library showing pupils all the services that a public library can offer and have the Mobile Library Service visit the school on a monthly basis. We also have links with a local book shop, Jarrolds, where the children get the opportunity to visit a book shop and select books for our library.
Book Festival Week, every March, gives the children the chance to focus on reading with lots of activities planned throughout the week, including reading aloud to members of the local community. Look below to see last year events and author visits to the school.
Book Swap Day
Read Aloud Day
Mobile Library Service visits every month on a Thursday 2.45 – 3.30pm
Mobile Library Service
Reading Ambassadors
Every Friday afternoon, Year 6 children get the opportunity to listen to Reception children reading a book and to share a story.
Lower Key Stage 2 visit Costessey Library
Children get the opportunity to visit the local Library in Costessey and forms are given to parents prior to the event so they can join the Library. The children enjoy seeing what a public Library has to offer and choose books to take home and share with the family.
Author Visits to Queen’s Hill
Benji Davis
6th November 2018
Isabelle King
Tuesday 12th June 2018
Cathy Rushworth
On Thursday 17th May 2018 Cathy Rushworth visited our Connie Forsyth Library to talk to the EYFS and KS1 children. She showed them her book Bear Extraordinaire and did workshops with the Year 1 children. The children enjoyed asking questions and sharing her book.
Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore
2 Steves – iHero
On May 16th the 2 Steves’ authors of the iHero books came to our school. Year 3 had wrote them some amazing persuasive letters to ask them to visit us and they did! Those who had wrote the best letters got the chance to have lunch with the two Steves’. The children also got the opportunity to attend an assembly talking about being an author and then a group of children went to a Superhero writing workshop to talk about and beginning their plans for their Superhero story. It was an amazing day.
Jacqueline Wilson
As part of World Book Day on 3rd March some of our Year 5 and 6 children got the chance to meet the author Jacqueline Wilson at the Open in Norwich. It was an inspiring talk hearing all about how she writes and what books she’s currently working on. Each child got a goody bag which included the first 3 chapters of her new book to be released in May. One of our pupils even got the chance to ask her a question.
Douglas Vallgren
The local author came into school for World Book Day in 2016 to celebrate and show what is involved in being an author and how to write a short story.
Steve Parker
Steve Parker a non-fiction author came and visited Lower Key Stage 2 on Friday 12th June 2015. He talked to the children about writing non-fiction books and the challenges it brings. The children were very enthusiastic to hear about his plans for his future books and had lots of questions to ask him. Steve Parker kindly donated some of his books to our school Library.
Clare Jarrett
Key Stage 1 were delighted on 2nd June 2015, to meet the author and illustrator Clare Jarrett, who came in to talk to the children about what it is like to be an author and show the different techniques she uses for her illustrations. The children were all engaged and asked lots of interesting questions. Clare was delighted that the children showed such an enthusiasm with their reading and has contacted me to say she would be delighted to come back to our school in the future.
WELL DONE Key Stage 1.
Sheridan Winn
On 11 March 2015 author Sheridan Winn came to visit Lower Ket Stage 2 to do a writing workshop. After talking about her series of books about the Sprite Sisters, she discussed with the children how to create an idea and gave them some tips on writing. The children wrote lots of ideas in their jotters, which they will use later in the week for their Big Write, and all enjoyed meeting Sheridan.
Liz Pichon
On Thursday 8th May 2014 we were delighted to have the bestselling author of the Tom Gates series, Liz Pichon spend the morning at our school.
She did an amazing presentation to all of Key Stage 2 children talking about where she gets her inspiration from her books, how she creates her characters and a step by step how she creates her fantastic front cover that she designs herself as she started her career as an illustrator. She did a question and answer session at the end where the children asked some great questions, and made some very creative front covers that are displayed in the school library, with our very own unique Quen’s Hill created monster – come and have a look.
She kindly visited the school library where she signed copies of her new book for children that had purchased them and the school library copies. It was a great morning, and I know Liz Pichon had an enjoyable time and even got some new storyline ideas when she met our school dogs – so don’t be surprised if the next Tom Gate’s book features a school dog!!!!!!
Anne Plichota and Cendrine Wolf
On 28th February 2014 we were delighted to welcome the authors Anne Plichota and Cendrine Wolf who wrote a series of books Oksa Pollock. The children from Year 5/6 really enjoyed listening to the french authors and the translators explaining the story of the book, their inspirations and reasons for writing. They asked lots of very interesting questions and I know are all very excited about getting the book out of the library. We currently have a reserve list in the library!! They kindly wrote a message and signed the copies that the school purchased. We hope to plan more author visits in the future.