Libraries can be Fun

JANELLE JOHNSON - ALFRISTON COLLEGE

connecting with them and they love trying to beat the Librarians. The most popular games are Chess, UNO, Connect 4 and Jenga.

I have recently taught a group of Senior boys how to play the dice game Greed as they told me they wanted to play something different from UNO. It did not take these boys long to learn the game and we could all have a good laugh while playing. One day I was busy during break and the boys approached me to play. I politely said I had work to do but they could play by themselves. Their reply warmed my heart because they replied “But Miss, it is no fun without you!” Now that is making a connection.

We would like to think our library is a fun place to come at breaktimes where learners can meet with friends, play games or just relax.

Janelle Johnson, Alfriston College

NOT JUST BOOKS - INQUIRY SUPPORT

PENNY WALCH - SOUTHWELL SCHOOL

I work in a private co-ed full primary school. For a number of years my colleague and I fought for our Year 7 students to have an hourlong session in our library, as opposed to the normal 40 minutes, as we wanted to better support our teachers and students when it came to developing inquiry skills. We chose the Year 7 cohort as we have a big intake at that year group, AND we felt that the students at this age would be able to jump on board with us.

Our traditional 40-minute periods generally consist of some book talking or library skills or inquiry skills and then some quiet reading, and when you only see classes once a week, that meant that inquiry skill support was few and far between.

We did some research and worked out that our students didn’t want to lose either the book talking OR the quiet reading time and so we had to put in a proposal which would allow them to have extra time in the library.

At about the same time our timetable structure changed so that we had two one-hour slots each morning. This seemed to fall into our cunning trap!

We put in a thoroughly thought-out proposal which tried to troubleshoot as many possible issues as possible which might result from our plan (timetable issues, clashes with other subjects, collaboration concerns etc…!) We went with solutions and a strong belief in what we were proposing.

The first time we proposed, it was rejected.

The second time we proposed, it was rejected. But the third time we asked, we got what we wanted, and our Year 7 students now have an hour a week in the library, which is split to fit in some book talking, some inquiry support and some quiet reading.

We are now at the start of our fourth year of implementation and obviously over the past few years Covid-19 has seriously cramped our style, but we have tried and we have tweaked, and we have tried again – and we continue to tweak.

We now feel that we have ourselves in a position where we can support our teachers and students by underpinning some of the skills being taught in the classroom, but also by being flexible around what we are doing.

We tend to start each semester with some immersion activities which we try to make fun and engaging and thought-provoking. We have taken our students to the local supermarket to think about plastic packaging, we have created protest simulations, and recently we led our students to believe that they would be having to go to school on a Saturday morning in order to help them understand how passionately people who are willing to protest feel about their cause. (It was pretty passionate in this scenario!)

Once they are hooked (and bearing in mind there is immersion going on in the classrooms as well), we get into some more technical teaching around the writing of a good inquiry question. This can be a tad painful for some, but we have developed a wall analogy which we break down into bricks - Question Words, Key Words and what we call Dig Deeper Words, which aim to open up the students’ questions in order to allow them to think more deeply about their area of interest. This also allows them to bring in their own point of view when appropriate.

Alongside this, we run a fun and slightly manic inter-class competition which aims to teach our students how to use our Library Management System (Oliver) more effectively. This leads nicely into teaching our students how to identify reliable sources of information. This is followed by some note-taking and note-making tips – I am a particular fan of sketch-noting as this allows all kinds of learning styles to process information.

We are continually tweaking and adapting, but we think we are onto a good thing. We have realised that it is not a speedy process, and we have also realised that we can’t always walk exactly side-by-side with the classroom teachers and what they are doing in class. But we are finding that our supplementary activities are valuable and students and teachers are taking the learning back to the classroom.

We firmly believe that including the library in our students’ inquiry journey gives them an extra layer to their learning which they can take into Year 8 and beyond.

Penny Walch, Southwell School