Ardnamurchan High School (Ard-Sgoil Aird Nam Murchan) is a small rural school of just 107 pupils, teaching through the medium of English and Gaelic and located beside beautiful Loch Sunart in a remote corner of the Western Highlands. We share our building with a community library, a nursery school and other community groups, and we pride ourselves in our links with our community partners and the community as a whole. We may be small in number but the whole school has soared with enthusiasm into the World Book Day competition this year, with everyone making kite bows and talking books.

Inspired by the competition title, we got together and decided to make a kite that would fly from the balcony in the school’s central dining area, displaying on the bows of its tail, our favourite books. All building users have been involved, including all the high school and nursery pupils; teaching and support staff; community library staff and users; parents and Ewen’s Room (a local mental health support group). All have chosen a book, and everyone has a bow on display.

The kite was designed and painted by one of our S2 pupils in his Art classes, with the kite structure made initially during Tech lessons. ‘Calaich Duerrh’, written on the kite, means ‘Flying High’ in Gaelic.

From the initial brainstorm, the whole project took wings, with pupils from the Craft club adding a book tree ‘growing out’ of books. The library staff got on board, linking the display to other World Book Day activities, by creating hot air balloons from the £1 and £2.50 World Book Day titles.

The variety of titles chosen has been amazing… from ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ and ‘Horrid Henry’ to ‘A prayer for Owen Meany’ and ‘The Communist Manifesto’. There are a couple of Gaelic titles in there too. The school has a voluntary reading group dedicated to reading the current shortlist for the Teenage Book Award and at least one pupil has elected Caighlan’s Smith’s novel “Children of Icarus”, as their favourite book ever. Best of all though, has been the conversations that have happened, totally naturally as people made their bows, talked about their books, and created the display. Here are some snippets:

“I have only ever read one book but I loved it” “Read more then!”

“I start every day with a book and a cup of tea”

“What is your favourite Roald Dahl?”

“I could have bought 5000 talking books off ebay last week. Do you think you have read 5000 books?”

“In the holidays I started reading and now I just read all the time”

“Easy… To Kill Mockingbird”

“Have you really read the Communist Manifesto?” “Yes”

“I have no idea what my favourite book is. There are just too many”

One member of staff discovered, through the book choice of “Isolation Shepherd”, that the cleaner is also a shepherd. As a result she has been receiving advice on training a new collie pup.

Everyone is truly talking books.