CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education) is launching a new interactive website for primary schools - Poetryline.  There are opportunities to see and use animations to enthuse children to poetry, see poets performing their poems, and get new ideas for teaching poetry, as well as giving guidance on new poetry books.  This is a great development arising from  CLPE running the annual Poetry Award for the last 10 years. 

To enter the competition, children should be aged between 7 and 17. They can submit a story, poem or article and it’s up to the individual what subject they choose to write about. This year the competition entries will be divided into four age categories: 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+. The deadline is 31st July 2013.
As well as becoming a published author, the winners will also earn the opportunity to attend a Red House Young Writers’ Workshop, with a  high-profile children’s author, held – for the first time ever- as part of the celebrated Imagine Children’s Festival at London’s Southbank Centre. The workshop will provide participants with a unique, fun and stimulating opportunity to help them hone their skills and provide lots of feedback to encourage and inspire!
So, both winners and authors get a great deal out of involvement in the Red House Young Writers competition – but you have to be in it to win it! And to enter simply email us with your piece of work along with your name, email address, date of birth, age range (7+, 9+, 11+, 13+), your parent/guardian email address and your address to youngwriters@redhouse.co.uk, with a subject of "Red House Young Writers' Yearbook 2013 Competition".
 

A personalised version of Carel's colourful 'Look in the library' poster personalised for schools library services.   An instant guide to how a library works with your SLS name and logo.  An ideal way of promoting your school library service.
 

JCS now has available at discounted consortia rates 2 new resources: Digital Theatre Plus and the Guardian and Observer Digital Archive.  Digital Theatre Plus provides an expanding collection of full theatre productions as streaming video featuring internationally renowned actors such as David Tennant, Catherine Tate and Laurie Metcalf.  The Guardian and Observer Digital Archive is a fully searchable online database of every article, photograph and advertisement published in these two newspapers between 1791-2003. It's now provided on the powerful ProQuest Historical Newspapers platform.
If you'd like to trial either or both of them just complete the form available from the home page.
 

Walker Books, home to the best in YA fiction, is offering 50 schools the chance to win an amazing package for your YA reading group.  If your school is a lucky winner, you will receive VIP packs of 5 free reading copies and discussion guides throughout the year, plus 45% off all the books in our YA promotion.

Your school will also have the chance to pitch for a Writer in Residence, plus Walker will be hosting 4 Skype author events for you to take part in. And, if you are not one of our lucky 50, you can still get involved by downloading free reading group guides and getting 45% off all the books in our YA promotion. 

Visit www.undercoverreads.com to enter and for full details.  Closing date is Monday 15 April 2013. Terms and conditions apply.

Books and authors involved in the promotion include:

• Black Spring – Alison Croggon
• Hidden Among Us – Katy Moran (out March)
• Flip – Martyn Bedford (out March)
• Monkey Wars – Richard Kurti (out May)
• The Night Itself – Zoe Marriott (out July)
• The Messengers – Edward Hogan (out September)
• Blood Donor – Steve Tusane (out September)
• Sawbones- Catherine Johnson (out October)

Good luck!

Oxford University Press is partnering with The Poetry Archive to support Poetry by Heart, a new national poetry competition in England which will see thousands of students aged 14 to 18 competing this spring to become national champion for their skill in memorising and reciting poems by heart.
 
Oxford University Press will provide free content from the Oxford English Dictionary Online, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and the American National Biography Online to support students participating in the competition. The poems on the Poetry by Heart website  include a number of links to OUP resources, encouraging students to explore in greater depth the language of the poems, and the lives of the poets who wrote them. Students can discover biographies of the poets using the Oxford DNB and ANB Online, and the OED entries help to explain the meaning and illustrate the usage of some of the older or more difficult words used in the selected poems. Check out some of the resources on the Partnership page, the teacher resources and the 'What's it all about?' pages.

 

Learning disability charity Mencap is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its annual spelling bee by launching the first-ever School Spellathon Week from 4-10 March 2013.   Every school in the UK is invited to take part to support Mencap and to be in with the chance to win a £10,000 cash prize.

More information about Spellathon and School Spellathon Week can be found online.  To take part in School Spellathon Week and to be eligible for the above prizes, email spellathon@mencap.org.uk

 

All the details can be found on the website and the closing date is Friday 26th April.  The 6 winners will have the chance to come down to London in July to meet Jacqueline Wilson, the winner and shortlisted authors of the Branford Boase Award for first time novelists and also publishers and editors. It's a great chance for children to chat to people in the business who can give them good advice about writing, as well as meeting the writers of the future.
You can download a poster to display in your library from the website.