News

Our School Library

We were extremely lucky this year to be able to open a brand new library within our school!  Lots of people have been involved in setting up our library, coming into school and visiting us and making kind donations.  We would like to thank all of the people who have helped us on our journey.

Jasper Cooper

Jasper Cooper is an author of children’s stories and kindly came into school to visit us.  Before he came to school he challenged the children to a competition, to predict and write the second chapter to his book! The winners were selected and when he came into school to speak in our assemblies he presented the winning children with a signed copy of one of his paintings!  We were privileged to have Jasper officially open our library and even do a book signing for us! He also donated a signed collection of his books to our library and one of his paintings of a character from his stories.  We would like to thank him very much for his kindness!

Sue Barrow

Sue is an author of Local History books.  She generously visited our school and gave a talk to Year 5 and 6 pupils.  She showed us her books and spoke to the children about the history of the Welsh Valleys.  The children enjoyed listening to her and having their questions answered by Sue. 

The Owl Sanctuary

We were lucky to have the Owl Sanctuary come into school during our celebration week, who brought with them an array of different birds and owls for us to see.  They taught us lots about the different birds they brought with them and both children and staff had the pleasure of handling some of the birds!

Colin Parsons

Colin, an author of children’s stories from South Wales, visited our school and presented an assembly for us.  He told us all about how he became an author and about his stories.  He read some of his story to us and donated signed books to our library.

Dan Green

Dan Green has written many Science books and we were lucky that he came into school to speak to Year 5 and 6.  He told us some fascinating information about how some of the Elements were discovered and named.  The children have since enjoyed finding out more information from the Science books he donated to our library.

The Vikings

During the week of our library opening Ystruth Primary was invaded by Vikings! Luckily, it was just Roo and his crew who brought lots of Viking weapons, clothing and other artefacts to show us all.  The children were enthralled by the presentation and especially loved the demonstration ‘fight’ with Vikings weapons! Thank you for being a part of our celebrations!

Donations

As well as all of these fantastic visitors to our school, we feel honoured that so many thoughtful, considerate people have made some wonderful donations to our library and we would like to thank all of them.  Without the help of these people, we would not have the incredible library that our children love to use.  We would like to thanks these individuals and companies;

• Adam Peglar of Vintage Joinery, Cwmtillery – for donating three beautifully crafted, colourful, rotary bookcases and our custom made listening centre.
• Julia O’Brien, from Turner – for her continued support and for donating a massive selection of items for our library including; magazines, t-shirts, pyjamas, a camera, toys and wellies! Thanks to her donations all children were able to go home, on the opening day, with a goody bag
• Peter and Esther at Pearsons – who initially donated 72 books to our library, then followed this up with a further donation of another 102 books!
• Merlynda the Monster Poet – donated an audio book and a poetry booklet.  She also gave our children the opportunity to take part in a poetry competition.  The winners will have their poems read by Merlynda and put onto a CD for us!
• Kirsten from made.com – donated two armchairs and bookcases
• Bisley from Newport – donated a bookcase 

More kind donations

We would also like to thank the following people for their kind donations

• Usbourne Publishing
• Bloomsbury Publishing
• Templar Publishing
• Penguin Group
• School Stickers
• Athletics Weekly
• D.C Thomson
• Andrew Cope
• Anne Fine
• Persephone Books
• Geraldine Mccaughren
• Belinda Hollyer
• Ali Sparkes
• Karen Wallis
• Heather Dyer
• Hachette Publishers
• David Melling
• Andrew Weale
• Peggy Woodford
• Brian Clegg
• Carmen Agate
• John Clarke
• Stewart Ross
• Richard Knight
• Alan Gibbons
• Sam Angus
• Jan Burchett
• Sara Vogler
• Walker Books
• Elen Caldecott
• Steve Barkett
• Steve Voake
• Miriam Moss
• Puneet Bhandal
• Linda Newberry
• Anita Ganeri
• John O’Leary
• Barking Books
• Wendy Storer
• Laura Sydonie
• Kitty Fitzgerald
• Andy Seed
• Motivation in Learning
• Sandra Horn
• Karen Riddiford
• Bali Rai

Special Thanks

Altogether we have had more than 200 donations from authors, bookshops, publishers and local craftsmen.  We have also had hundreds of donations of books from thoughtful parents and children.  With all of your amazing donations we now have almost 4000 books in our library!

• Mark Yewman of the Beanbag Company – donated 3 large, colourful beanbags
• Will Plane, of My Wall Stickers – donating a huge selection of wall stickers
• Global Mapping – sent us some large maps
• Johnny Nassri, of irugsuk – donated a beautiful alphabet rug
• Katy Griffiths, from Party Packs – gave us a large stand up Big Ben, some world flags bunting and an inflatable globe
• Louise Avie, from ifcatalogue – donated a magazine bookcase
• Matthew Branch, from Porter and Woodman – sent 25 A4 and 30 A5 chalk boards and chalks
• Asda – for giving us a token box in the Brynmawr branch
• Tesco – gave us a £20 gift voucher 
• Bob from Much Ado Books – donated a £50 Amazon Voucher, which we were able to use to purchase books for our library
• Kayleigh Akehurst at Littlehampton books – sent us 69 books
• Kelsey Cameron at Immediate Media – donated 63 magazines
• Laurence from Look and Learn – sent us 100 old newspapers and 12 Look and Learn Books
• George from Tales on Moon Lane – donated 176 books! 
• Sarah Rees at Cover to Cover bookshop in Swansea – sent us 48 books
• Hiawyn Oram – kindly donated 93 books
• Juliet at Ellaskitchen – sent us 45 books
• Sue from Childs Play – donated 52 books

• Daniel Ingram Brown
• Heather Butler
• First News
• Sara Grant
• Random House
• Claire Alexander
• Caryl Hart
• John Townsend
• Joseph Craig
• Francis-Lincoln
• Hannah Shaw
• Stephanie Burges
• John O’Brien
• Margie Mistmantle
• Rita Baptiste
• Robert Crowther
• Scholastic
• Chris Delacey
• Liesl Shurtiff
• Valerie Wilding
• Macmillan
• Nicky Singer
• Sam Wilding
• Abi Burlingham
• The Catchpole Agency
• Barn Owl Books
• Alan Durant
• Ed Wicke
• Rose Impey
• Tim Walker
• Julie Fulton
• Melvin Burgess
• Jane Clarke
• Tom Waller from DK Publishers
• Sophia Bennett
• Cathy Maclennan
• Johnny Meres
• Mad About Snail Books
• John Blake
• Lou Kuenzler
• Dawn at Audio Go
• Karen Mccombie
• Emas UK
• Karen Twissell at Manning Partnership
• Derek Smith
• Anderson Press
• Thomas Docherty
• Angela Royston
• Josh Lacey

Special Thanks

We would also like to say a special thank you to three parents; Rachel Snell, Louise Mason and Kerys Beese.  The help and support of these parents, of coming into school and helping to organise the library and catalogue all of the books, has been invaluable.  An especially big thank you to Mrs Snell who spent a massive amount of time and effort contacting hundreds of authors and publishers, making our library what it is today! Thank you all. 

• Val Townsend – sent us 52 Wildlife books
• Giles Lyon, Worldsendbookshop – donated 100 books
• The Puppet Company – donated ‘Sage’ the puppet
• Kate Powling – sent us 100 books
• Nicola Davies  - for donating several boxes of books
• Jillian Powell – donated several boxes of books
• Penny Johnson – sent us 117 books
• Stephanie and Andrew at Browning Books – sent 58 books
• Dawn Rasmussen at Wacky but True Magazine – arranged for us to have a one year subscription to their magazine
• Stephen at News Ademic – arranged a year subscription to their magazine
• Gloria Lyons – for donating 15 cookery books 

​We have had books from some very well know people!!

Ainsley Harriot, Jamie Oliver, Jo Pratt, Will Buckingham, Claire Freedman, Jennie Maizels, Ian Whybrow, Rod Campbell and Sophie Grigson have all sent us books! 

We have even had books from overseas!

• Elizabeth Barker, of Kidscanpress – sent us 77 books all the way from Canada! 
• Bronwyn Bancroft – donated books from ‘Down Under’ in Australia
• Robert Sabuda – sent us books from America

• Cat Weatherall
• Jeanne Willis
• Guy Parker Rees
• Nicola James from Five Mile Press
• Basil and Linda
• Parragon
• Ros Asquith
• Search Press
• Dan Freedman
• Kit Grindstaff
• Liz Pichon
• Elaine Cline
• Glenn Murphey
• Fiona Cummings
• Nosy Crow
• Sue Mongredien
• Linda Chapman
• Alex Keller
• Shara from Quarto
• Polly Holyoke
• Robin at Monster Books
• Green Bee
• Sue Bentley
• Little Tiger
• Ros Denny
• Harper Collins
• Amanda Mitchison
• Ian Billings
• Matthew Buckingham
• Trudi Trueit
• Miriam Latimer
• Little Dish
• Marcia Williams
• Conrad Mason
• Colin King
• Paul Mason
• Rosemary Wells
• David Roberts
• John Cooper
• James at MTC
• Kiddy Cook
• Laura Adsett
• Ching Hehuang
• Tom and Rebecca Palmer
• Larry Brimner
• Mike and Patty Thaler
• Klara at Short Books