SLG Regional Event, Oakham School, November 2016

Due to appalling traffic in Huntingdonshire on Tuesday November 1 2016, I missed the first presentation at this event at Oakham School in Rutland.

Luckily, I managed to arrive in time for Karen Benoy's interesting talk about Using data to track reading in KS3 at Thomas Alleyne Academy.  Based on Adam Lancaster's ideas, Karen discussed developing a tool to collect data on children's reading age, aptitude and enthusiasm for reading: enabling teachers and librarians to intervene when those children are unable to progress. Attitude to reading surveys are run twice a year and Year 7 are asked what/where they read; their favourite genres; the types of reading material used; their use of libraries; their attendance at book or author events; whether they love or hate reading. Online assessment tests are used to generate comprehensive data on reading ability and this data is added to SIMS. In library lessons the data is used to seat readers with non-readers and reader intervention records are used to record data. The data collection and interpretation did look time consuming, and librarians would need to be sure that such a strategy was appropriate for their school before implementing a similar scheme. However, the interventions do seem to be working at Karen's school, with a clear difference in children's reading post-intervention.

I was intrigued by the "Read to Succeed" Week initiated by Claire Scothern at Trent College. It took a year to organise and involved lots of different authors talking to different pupils from different year groups. Some did a book talk, others offered writing workshops. There was even a "come dressed as your favourite book character" day. Claire admitted that such a large event can create problems, not least due to the amount of visiting speakers who needed to be booked in advance; the possibility of cancellations; the cost of booking the authors; the logistics of enabling pupils to be out of lessons to attend author talks. In the future, the week may be three days instead of five, with each day being for a specific year group, to reduce the pressure on the timetable. I am always amazed when librarians organise these large events - they are very time consuming and require a lot of energy, drive and creativity, but it looked like a great success.

Next, Darryl Toerien from Oakham School discussed Curriculum Mapping, a strategy for joining up academic departments with library resources. It enables libraries to ensure that they know what is being taught when and to whom.  Not all departments offer detailed schemes of work for topics; thematic line of enquiry and learning objectives are not always clear, and some subjects do not combine topics into units. Few schemes include resource lists or resources for further inquiry. Darryl's software enables library staff to see what is being taught at a given part of the year and make links with other areas of the curriculum which may be teaching a related topic. Use of the library for research on these topics can then be built into the curriculum/timetable.

After lunch we were able to explore the online resources subscribed to by Oakham School Library, then Sophie Fisher from the Stephen Perse Foundation talked about her interest in Diversity in Picture Books. Sophie researched this area for her Masters degree and discovered that it is difficult to discover which picture books cover LGBT+ issues as a public library user due to poor keywording, low stock levels and supplier-led stock selection. A straw poll of librarians in the room indicated that diversity in school library fiction is better, possibly due to expert librarians selecting books from specialist suppliers such as Letterbox or Stonewall. I feel pretty comfortable in my selections of LGBT+ fiction - it is becoming more mainstream and accessible and I think teenagers are less stigmatised through reading what may in the past have been disparaged by their peers as "a gay book."

Next up was my presentation, more on which here.

Lastly, Alison Tarrant from Cambourne Village College talked about embedding information literacy within the curriculum through research projects in KS3. Having set up the library at CVC, Alison is well placed to initiate new methods of teaching information skills. Using the Stripling model of Inquiry pupils were encouraged to follow the steps to add more depth to their research. In the study, teaching sets were split into those receiving librarian help via personal instruction, those receiving help via an instruction sheet and those with no help at all. Groups receiving librarian help achieved more and with less contact time than the other groups,as they did more work independently. It seems that embedding research skills in the task can improve student outcomes: they will use multiple sources and are encouraged to think deeper about the subject and about how to complete the task. Greater engagement with the librarian increases pupil confidence, although any worksheets given out need to be given at the start of the project to avoid resentment about extra work. It will be interesting to see whether similar results are achieved with future year groups and different subjects in the future.

All in all, an interesting and informative day. It was nice to meet some school librarians I hadn't met before and to have a chat with them about their libraries. Thanks to Darryl and his team for hosting.

Presenting at the SLG Regional Event, Oakham School, November 2016

Last year I attended the SLG Regional Event at Cambourne Village College and indicated that I would be happy to present at a future event when I filled in the evaluation form. So I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email from SLG in the summer asking me if I would like to present at the regional event in November this year.  OK, I thought, this is good practice for networking, speaking in front of my peers and creating a conference presentation.

So I said yes, and left it for a bit, then I got another email asking me what I would be speaking about.

At which point I thought, "good question, what am I going to speak about?" I've been a school librarian for two years; I'm not responsible for major initiatives; I don't do any research. What am I going to tell a room full of school librarians that they may find interesting?

The only thing that I can really talk about with any knowledge is myself. "Aha! That's it. That's what I'll talk about". Not my entire life story of course, that would be dull, and take infinitely more than twenty minutes. However, my route into school librarianship via Higher Education might be interesting, and it would definitely be different.

So a couple of weeks ago I started to think about my career path: how I started working in libraries; the libraries I have worked in; the skills gained in each post. And I began to formulate a talk in which I looked at my career in HE, and the skills needed in that sector, and thought about how I applied them in a school library context.

And as I hate PowerPoint (because they are inevitably boring, whatever you do to jazz them up) I created a simple Prezi to show my career path, what I learned along the way, what made me switch from HE to Schools, and what I'm planning on doing in the future.

There were notes which I wrote to accompany the Prezi, but I didn't use them. I found that if you really know your subject, you only need a few prompts and some visual stimulus to help you talk about it. Of course, there were things I'd written in the notes that I know I didn't say, and there were things I said that weren't in the notes, but if you constrain yourself to the script in front of you, all spontaneity is lost and there is no opportunity to take advantage of the reaction of your audience.

Either I came across as a fun, enthusiastic School Librarian who is enjoying working as such, or twenty people at Oakham School spent 15 minutes laughing at a complete and utter fruitcake.

Well, at least it wasn't dull.

TeachMeet East : Tools and tips for teaching

CILIP East held a TeachMeet on Saturday 9 July 2016 at the Chelmsford Campus of Anglia Ruskin University. This free event was open to all librarians with an interest in sharing their teaching experiences.

Overall, it was an interesting experience,with the Anglia Ruskin librarians sharing some of the ideas they discovered at LILAC (Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference) and the Health Libraries Conference.

Gamification was a big theme, demonstrating that information skills can be taught in a fun and engaging way. I particularly liked the competitive aspect of the question hunt, which would appeal to children in years 7-9.

Also the fact or fiction cards would be a good way of debunking myths and evaluating information sources with older pupils, perhaps in the sixth form.

There is no denying that these lessons are far more engaging than the traditional stand in front of the class and give them lots of information lessons that we are more used to offering. They also require much more initial preparation and a higher level of creativity.

However, once the initial work is done, they offer a more enjoyable lesson to deliver, and possibly one that children will enjoy more, and perhaps they may even retain more of the information through being taught this way.

I felt that many of the participants were novice teacher-librarians, looking to pick up some info on how to teach. I wanted to talk to others about their teaching styles, and what techniques they used when offering inductions to new users: it seems that we are most of us stuck in a rut - offering the same teaching materials because we are conscious that we only get a short period of time in which to give them everything they need. This makes inductions dull for us and dull for our users.

It is very hard to change, but if we do it bit by bit, we could make these sessions fun for everyone,

Read All About It! The Impact of Reading on Learning - SLG Conference, 22-24 April 2016

I have been working in libraries for 12 years and I have just attended my first ever proper conference.

I've been to training days, regional events, meetings and an unconference, and have even been on a committee to help organise a staff conference, but a whole weekend away from home, with speakers and seminars and free books to take away? Not even a snifter.

Part of the reason, of course, is cost. Conferences are expensive.  A weekend conference with accommodation is going to cost in the region of £500, and most employers haven't got the training budget to stump up for that. And if they have, you need to prove the worth of your attendance, not only for your own personal development, but for your job and your employer as well.

I am lucky to be employed by an Independent School which is very supportive of CPD, and also has a healthy training budget. Without this assistance, I would not have been able to attend the SLG conference.

When you have a large room full of librarians, most of whom you've never met before, it can be a bit daunting. Luckily, I met some lovely people who were happy to chat about libraries, being a librarian and general stuff, as well as some librarians I already knew.

As an experience, it was pretty full on. As it was my first conference, I went to everything bar the AGM. By lunchtime on Sunday I was feeling pretty drained and suffering to some extent from Information Overload. But it is so hard to decide what to miss: what has value to you as a professional? what is going to be interesting?

Highlights:

Cressida Cowell talking about her childhood holiday experiences on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. Her father landing a conger eel encouraged her to think about dragons as real creatures.

Philip Ardagh discussing the books he read as a child, and how they influenced him as a writer. He is a very funny speaker and encouraged us to reflect on books we loved as children to inspire the love of reading in others.

Sam Angus talking about writing her new book, House on Hummingbird Island, and the amount of research required to write both historical and animal-based novels. Her inspiration came directly from her research, from photographs of the period, and from discussions with friends.

Tanya Landman reading Mary's Penny aloud to us after dinner - a wonderful story, brilliantly read by the author.

So many free books from the publishers in the exhibition. Nosy Crow in particular had so many books to give away and were really friendly.

Overall, this was a worthwhile experience. Reflecting on the whole weekend, it was probably not worthwhile going to every seminar. Cherry picking those that are of most interest and then using the remaining time to reflect on the experience is perhaps more useful. Having said that, I took most away from Matthew Wheeler's talk on Professional Registration: as a Chartership candidate, his presentation made me feel less daunted by the whole process, and more willing to get started!
Secondly, I was inspired by Dr Carolynn Rankin's talk on impact and demonstrating value to think about doing some research, and possibly about getting it published!

It made me think about who school librarians are, and who they think they are; also who school librarians are thought to be. This seems rather philosophical, but the point, perhaps is:

Is a school librarian really that different from any other kind of librarian?

To quote Shakespeare, as many of us were doing that weekend:

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that."

Shylock, The Merchant of Venice, III, i, 58-62.

All librarians are in the profession to aid access to information. Regardless of the age, gender or education of the customer/client/user/whatever, this is our purpose. School librarians really are no different from academic librarians, or those in the public library sector, or law librarians. All require the same skill set, and all can specialise within their sector.

There are various presentations and handouts available on the SLG Conference website here to read at leisure. I will definitely be doing this with Professor Maria Nikolajeva's keynote on the emotional impact of reading on children's development.
 

School Libraries Group Eastern Event - Cambridge

The CILIP SLG regional event took place in December at Cambourne Village College.
Topics discussed included censorship, supporting the curriculum and author visits.

Angela Sparks discussed freedom of access vs. safeguarding - how we as school librarians are gatekeepers of books for young people, and the difficult choices we make when deciding whether to:

• stock a book
• restrict access to a book (with age rating stickers, special collections or via the LMS)
• enable young people to make their own choice of reading material

These dilemmas vary depending on the kind of school, e.g. faith schools and the kind of parents involved with the school.  Some librarians reported letters of complaint from parents who had skim-read books and complained about language or content, but it was pointed out that most complaints come from reading out of context. It was agreed that sexual content and swearing was on the rise in Young Adult fiction, but that children could access this on the Internet or on television easily enough. The difference between film adaptations and the original novels (e.g. Hunger Games and Twilight) - visual content vs. descriptive/imaginative content gave us food for thought. Children are limited by their own imaginations when reading books, and a visual image from a film on the big screen stays in the mind longer than one created by one's own imagination.

Sue Hart presented how she supports EPQ at Kimbolton School, and explained ways in which librarians can get involved, either by supervising candidates, running skills sessions on academic writing, referencing and plagiarism, or by supporting preliminary research. It was a good overview of the qualification, but does involve a lot of work, both by students and staff.

Rosie Pike explained how organising author visits at Bishop's Stortford College became a week-long literary festival. The work involved in organising an event of this scale is a whole school effort, and not for the faint-hearted. However, it is clear that the response from the children makes it all worthwhile and perhaps evening author visits which appeal to both adults and children may help with the costs of these events for school with limited budgets.

After lunch, we indulged our creative sides with Michael Margerison, who described how he teaches different year groups about books, genre and narrative as part of their library lessons. We were all encouraged to write a fantasy adventure story following the conventions. Some took this more seriously than others. Chris, Sara, Concetta, Sue and I came up with the following:

The Voluptuous Witch Nigella was asked by the Wizard Oliver to seek out the Chocolate Fountain of Youth, so she sailed to the Island of Chocotopia in a marshmallow boat. But the Fiery Dragon Delia swooped down and roasted the marshmallow boat, which sank into the sea. Voluptuous Nigella floated to the island on her back, where she discovered the infamous Nut Mountain. Climbing Nut Mountain, Nigella dodged the rain of Ferrero Rocher boulders and giant Chocolate Oranges hurled down upon her by Delia's minion, Ramsey, and was rescued by the Hairy Bikers and their moustaches. All three headed to the Chocolate Fountain of Youth, where Voluptuous Nigella bathed in its cocoa glory.

After the silliness of our stories, Alison Tarrant explained to us how she uses Aurasma, an augmented reality app, to enhance the library experience for pupils. Book covers are linked to reviews of that book; displays are made interactive; explanatory videos (for, e.g. DDC) are accessed from wall signage. Of course, apps rely on a stable internet connection, on devices working effectively, and on some user knowledge. This is an app that may add a little extra fun to the library experience for some youngsters.

And the day ended with some general discussions about current reading, how we would deal with a limited library budget and supporting diversity at school.

A good day, with lots of interesting topics covered, and a good opportunity to meet up with other library professionals in the school sector.

Utilising iPads in Library lessons

For several years, the Library has been running information and library skills for all year groups, but especially for years 7 and 8, to introduce them to, for example, how the library is laid out, what Dewey Decimal Classification is, how to search the catalogue effectively.

One of these sessions has always been the Reading Game. We have been using the preprinted sheets from Carel Press to do this activity, which introduces pupils to different genres and books from our fiction library. Now that all pupils have iPads, we thought we would try and use the available technology to make the game more up to date for the app generation.

We are fortunate in having a lovely Learning Technologist who was able to come up with a few different apps which might achieve our purpose, and once we got over the idea that we had to do exactly the same thing in exactly the same format, looking exactly the same, but online, we decided to use Evernote, an app that I had come across many years ago, but never really had the need to use.

So essentially, when you pick apart the activity, each pupil is assigned a different genre. They have to look at the four provided books for that genre and decide which of these has:

• the best blurb
• the best start
• the best cover

Using Evernote, they need to record their decisions.

The advantage with Evernote is the ability to create a Notebook in which to store differently named Notes. So they created a Notebook called Reading Game, in which they created a Note for each genre they encountered. In each note, they type in which book title has the best blurb and which has the best start, then they take a photo of the best cover to embed in the note,

The advantage of using the iPads over the printed sheets is that pupils have their iPads with them all the time, for use in lessons, whereas the printed sheets were kept in the library and often never looked at again. So when it comes to revisiting the information, it is much more accessible and usable than before.

We recently introduced year 7 to Passport to Reading, which is our school reading challenge. They have to read 6 books in different genres and record what they have read, with a short review, in a booklet. Once the booklet is completed, they receive a certificate and can move up to the next level. Each level gets progressively harder, with pupils needing to read 6, then 9, then 12, books from 6 different genres in levels 1-3, then in level 4 to read 6 books in a chosen genre and, at level 5, to read 6 books from specified genres. In total, pupils who complete the challenge have read 39 books - in 2 years.

Now that the Reading Game diaries are stored on the pupils' iPads, pupils can check the genre Notes to give them an idea what to read in each category - they can choose to read a book they liked during the activity, and it helps to reinforce what is different about the genres.

Of course, we could use the iPads for the Passport to Reading as well, but each book recorded must be signed off by a teacher, librarian, parent or guardian, so I think we'll stick with paper for now.

Back to School

After a very nice (and very long) summer break, including a trip to Amsterdam to visit a friend, see the canals and eat cheese (yum), it's back to school time.

So what's new this term?

Well, an upgrade to our library management system has been providing us with variable amounts of joy and despair since July, when we moved from Eclipse.net to Eclipse (hosted) with the Reading Cloud.  Teething problems with the Management module aside, this is a vast improvement on our old and very creaky version of MLS's software, with its old-school public catalogue.  All the staff and pupils I have seen in library inductions love the Reading Cloud, with its social features, the ability to personalise and its modern look.  Having said that, some of the pupils were so excited at the prospect of creating their avatars, they forgot they were in a reading lesson! Most of them have enthusiastically borrowed books so we're off to a good start.

My holiday reading involved catching up with that's cool in teen fiction. Unfortunately, quite a lot of this is dystopian worlds or about kids dying, so I didn't read as much as I had hoped. However, in the past six months I have at least read the Carnegie medal shortlist for 2015.

Here are my thoughts in "this is my favourite book" order:

Buffalo Soldier (worthy winner)
The Middle of Nowhere (atmospheric)
The Fastest Boy in the World (beautiful)
Apple and Rain (realistic)
When Mr Dog Bites (challenging)
Tinder (gripping)
Cuckoo Song (freaky)
More Than This (derivative)

Recent reads in teen fiction include:
Belzhar (insightful, but with a twist)
All the Truth That's In Me (disappointing - guessed the ending too early)
If I Stay (pleasantly surprised - really enjoyed this life or death novel)
The Fault in our Stars (not as miserable as I had expected - can understand why the girls like it)
Smart (clever grounded-in-real-life detective story)
Liar and Spy (in two minds about whether I liked this one)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (I was shocked by the content - drug refences and everyone smoking - published early 90s though)

Still on the bookshelf:
My Heart and Other Black Holes / Maggot Moon / The Miniaturist / The Monogram Murders / Apache / Cassandra's Sister / Peter Pan in Scarlet / The Bunker Diary / Looking For Alaska / The Hunger Games trilogy / Web of Darkness

So I'm getting there with the fiction, although I keep supplementing what I think of as my "work reads" with various non-fiction titles, my Agatha Christie Miss Marple collection and titles from the public library. There just aren't enough hours in the week to read as much as I would like to. Perhaps I should devote my time to scheduled "reading lessons" like we have for years 7-9 at school!