This event is one of the highlights of my calendar as
it’s always such a joyous occasion although I’m pleased I don’t have to make
the final decision as to the winner. School librarianship is a strange beast. Whilst you could be forgiven for thinking that every school librarian position would be the same - after all schools deal with a narrow age range of pupils all at the same stages of their lives and thus experiencing the same exams, events, etc. so surely their needs are similar? - when you actually look at what each of us do within individual schools it varies enormously depending on the ethos and priorities of the school, support from SMT and budgets. Which makes it very hard to compare like-with-like.
This year there were three school librarians on the
Honour List:
Ros
Harding from The King’s School Chester (winner)
Chantal
Kelleher from Herne Bay High School
Helen
Cleaves from Kingston Grammar School
If you look at their profiles on the School Library
Association website, you will see what an asset they all are to their
respective schools. One of the features of the afternoon is a video created by each
school highlighting the work of their librarian and why they were nominated. What
is striking when you watch these isn’t so much the physical aspects of their
libraries (wonderful that they are) or even the librarians themselves but the
impact they’ve had on their students and staff.
And what this highlights is that you can have a room
full of the latest books or cutting-edge technology but without that professional
librarian to oversee it, the synergy between students, staff and resources just
isn’t going to happen. School librarians are catalysts and facilitators, and without them the "library" will simply be a room full of “stuff”. It may be
used on an ad-hoc piecemeal basis. Some teachers may take their classes in to
change books. It could even be packed at breaktimes with a member of staff
supervising students. But the library and its resources will
certainly not be used to its full potential, you need a librarian for this – engendering reading, supporting
teaching and learning, providing a safe space for all students.
Have a look at the videos and you’ll see
what I mean. The most powerful parts are where students and staff are talking
about their librarians. If you work in a school and are lucky enough to have a school
librarian, do you really know what
they do, and how they can support you and your students? Are you using them to
their full potential, utilising their skills, experience and knowledge to bring
value-added to all aspects of your school? And if you’re in one of those schools
that don’t have a school library and/or librarian (and several don’t) maybe it’s
time to ask the powers-that-be why not? Because the people losing out here are
your students ….
