This gallery contains 2 photos.
Last year, a photograph appeared in a box of old items that had been buried deep in storage for some time. It had no identification and seemed much older than everything with it. It showed a Vicar with a medal. … Continue reading
One of the casualties of cuts in education funding last year was the excellent Resource Development Network (RDN) Portal www.Intute.ac.uk. A directory of free high quality information for students (still partly available but not kept current) which was supported by seven major UK universities, Intute was often the first port of call for Librarians with a responsibility beyond KS4.
Happily, I have just come across a brilliant new free resource this week; The Open University’s Learning Space. A portal to over 600 free online courses from The Open University, the courses range from beginners to advanced level, taking from one hour to 50 hours to complete and although you won’t get an accredited qualification, as a way of freely gaining access to good quality information to broaden your knowledge, contextualise what you already study and help you to identify an interesting area for further study, I can’t think of a better one.
With Topic areas ranging from Arts and Humanities to Engineering and Technology, Social Science to International Studies, each with many varied units to study, the site and courses are well laid out and easy to use. There is the capacity to sign up to track your progress, connect with other learners in discussion forums and find the tools to help you learn, but this isn’t compulsory.
In the ‘Skills’ section there is a very good introduction to essay and report writing, maths for Science and Technology and other ‘Learning to Learn’ topics.
The materials made available on the Open Learn Site are released under the terms of the Creative Commons licence. This allows you to use the materials throughout the world without payment but for non-commercial purposes only.
Use for project work, to supplement what you learn in school, as a preparation for Further or Higher Education or just because you are interested.
(Image from NASA at The Commons@Flikr)
When the Year 8 forum made the suggestion last month that that the Library should get some Kindles , I realised I was going to have to address the issue head on. Some of my local School Library colleagues already have some Kindles in their libraries and the issue is a frequent topic of discussion as we review the pros and cons for spending such a large amount of money on a technology with limited application, already facilitated in the main by a medium almost as old as the message itself; the book. Although viewed as a way to engage ‘reluctant readers’ with fiction, the jury is still out on whether e-readers make a lasting difference. There is no quick fix to make a person into a reader although school librarians know from experience that the right book at the right time with the right encouragement can be habit changing. A positive reading environment(social and physical), certainly makes a huge difference and investment there has proven results.
It has been estimated that this Christmas one in 40 British adults received an e-book, 92% of which were Kindles. And no wonder. The e-reader is a great way to read on the beach, with poor eye-sight, when reading many things simultaneously, when reading very quickly or when you only have one hand free. It’s not so great if you tend to lose things, drop things, are vulnerable to thieves, read in the bath or want to keep a book you’ve liked forever. Most of our clientele fall into the second category. The love of the book, the love of its cover, the love of taking it off the shelf five years later and finding exactly the bit you particularly remembered, the reading it “cover to cover”- these are physical things it is hard to imagine living without. And it’s only a bit annoying if you leave your £8 paperback on the bus.
Where it does appear e-readers may find their first application in school is in the area of non-fiction and text books. Already in US universities, most text book provision is as e-resource and the ability to purchase by chapter and update in real time not to mention the ability to interact with images and graphics is transforming publishing. It is forseeable that this will quickly filter down to schools and for a number of reasons the Kindle or any other simple reader may not be the best tool for the task. Students now used to smart phones require more to be impressed. The wide-spread use of hand-held technology in school to read fiction may well be led by what we use to interact with the broader curriculum. At that point the expense makes sense. We are going to carefully “watch this space”.
For the moment I know that if my pupil librarians hadn’t read Warrior Cats in the conventional form, they wouldn’t have spotted their favourite books in the fantastic video below. Enjoy!
Stephen Lawrence by Carol Ann Duffy
Cold pavement indeed
the night you died,
murdered;
but the airborne drop of blood
from your wound
was a seed
your mother sewed
into hard ground-
your life’s length doubled,
unlived, stilled,
till one flower, thorned,
bloomed
in her hand,
love’s just blade.
(Published in The Guardian Sat 07.01.12)
Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust
Driving in on Friday, on the radio amid the usual news coverage of our economic disaster, was an interview with a Biblio-therapist. My ears pricked up. Apparently, reading carefully chosen fiction can help you through life’s trials and tribulations. Parenthood, bereavement, identity crisis can all be mitigated by the right books at the right time. Well, I’m a librarian so it all seemed a bit obvious to me. They were preaching to the converted. However, the additional point was made that sharing books, reading aloud, was very important. For most of us, the action of reading aloud finishes with school, often in the early years. If we are lucky we are read to as children and are happy to read to other children. English teachers (and Librarians) know the value of reading aloud; as a way of building communication, speaking and listening skills and as a way to recognise the rich experience of story-telling, the skill of a writer. Extending this to our friends is unusual; the enthusiastic recommendation of a brilliant book with an illustration of why, and the social activity of talking about a book, is often overlooked. But book groups thrive and I’ve seen many teachers in the Library and many Authors who will reduce the chaotic agitation of a large mob of unruly boys to a calm, contemplative ‘chilled out’ group by opening a book, finding the right page and reading a bit. No one ever complains. Reading is the greatest, most underestimated de-stress treatment available. Wouldn’t it be great if this Christmas there was time to share a book? It would be a gift. Free Bibliotherapy. There’s nothing on the box anyway. I’ve had a look.
Thanks to Darquati @Flikr Commons
Yesterday the annual ceremony for turning on the lights of the Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square took place. Any Blue Peter fans of the last forty years will know that the 70 foot spruce is a gift from Norway in gratitude for British support during the Second World War. Our guest this week, Kevin Crossley-Holland, was present at the felling and the lighting of the tree this year, our 65th, and explained the deeper significance of the gift. In Norse mythology the first man and woman are created from an Ash and an Elm. Norsemen believed that the universe consisted of three levels ; Asgard, Midgard and Niflheim , and nine worlds, and the axis of the three levels was a Mighty Ash Tree, a guardian tree. Trees are essential to the wooden boats that sail the Fiords and the wooden houses that bring shelter from the ice and the dark; central to the Norwegian psyche and mythology and the cosmology that underpins it. Hence, a gift of great significance on many levels. All this gleaned from Crossley-Holland, a master story-teller and a scholar of pre-Christian mythology from the North, Anglo-Saxon speaker and poet. Norse mythology seems particularly appropriate to us at this time of year. It felt like a whistle stop event but we hope to see him again soon.
Yr 7 at Muchamore visit in Birmingham
Very few authors have done more to keep boys reading in the last six years than Robert Muchamore, the author of the Cherub series. This week we were invited by King Edward’s School, Birmingham to meet the author in the flesh and get some of our old battered favourites signed. Unfortunately only 30 boys could be taken as many other schools were also invited. So the names of six lucky fans from each class were picked out of a hat and given the morning off school. Muchamore talked about what drove him to write his first book, The Recruit, the decisions he had made to engage a modern readership and keep them engaged, and why he thought the life of a writer was so good. Known for the violence depicted in his books, Muchamore is no award winner. However, his narrative has a pace and thrill that keep his readers coming back for more, even sometimes into the sixth form where a quick read brings a bit of light relief to the gaming generation. For keeping the window open to escapist fiction in a busy day, Cherub takes some beating.
I like November because that’s when I gain a perceptible change in my ratings from a bit odd, but nice, to (momentarily) quite cool. It is when I get to deliver the free Booked Up Books to Year 7. The whole process is a weird one for a librarian. We don’t often give books away; we’ve got lots of great ones to lend. But the process of choosing a new book for themselves, even in a school like this one, is not necessarily something every eleven year old has done before. To make that decision amongst your mates is quite empowering. Many will choose the same book, and read it, alongside their friends. Some will be determined to try something different. There will always be a couple of front runners among the titles, but because they are all good, the challenge for me is to pitch the others. Each year there is a lovely poetry book – this year’s is Pumpkin Grumpkin, collected by John Agard and Grace Nichols. That’s where I always start. There are several points I make. It seems to me that even in houses with books, to find a recent poetry book is unlikely. I make the point, however, that when there is a poetry book in the house, it is almost certainly one kept from parents’ schooldays, when the charity bag calls they are hard to let go. The boys will be studying poetry (from teachers who love it), so having a poetry book around is very very useful. But most importantly, the pleasure of dipping into a book which makes you look at the world for a moment in a different way, taking time from a noisy day to listen to words carefully chosen, is something to be valued highly. Pumpkin Grumpkin, a Book of Nonsense Poems from around the World is a good choice this year. As JonArno Lawson says, “Trying to make sense of nonsense brings us back to our senses”.
At the end of last term I made a visit to Prison by the kind invitation of the Nottingham Prison Librarian. The visit was one organised by the librarian’s professional body, CILIP, to show us how other libraries work and help us pick up good ideas for our own. Although some ideas from the prison library do not translate easily to a school library, there were many similarities and I thought I’d write a brief description for those who haven’t experienced reading at ‘Her Majesty’s Pleasure’.
Nottingham Prison is a remand prison for men awaiting trial from the Notts and Derbyshire areas. There are about 1060 inmates with 13 spare beds that day. As they are awaiting trial, some are only there for a few months. Consequently, education and courses can be disrupted or curtailed with moves to other prisons. They are also curtailed by cuts to the education budget, cuts in staffing and by over-crowding. The day we entered the prison was a training day so all inmates were locked up in their cells for the whole day. Most cells are shared but the single cells are reserved for the prisoners who work, either as cleaners or cooks. Needless to say, everything we saw was spotless. The prisoners have all their meals in their cells. Stairs, landings and doors are metal, the wings have three floors open in the middle and the noise is tremendous.
The Library, by contrast, is a haven of quiet and calm. Inmates should be able to visit once a week if a prison officer is available to accompany them, and it is the one part of the prison that looks normal and feels friendly. Art work covers the walls and men can borrow four books per week although big readers can take more. There are no over-dues and no losses. Thrillers and fantasy fiction are very well used. There are books in foreign languages kept for foreign prisoners, classics, law books, cooking and art, poetry and careers. It may surprise no one that the, by far, favourite author is Martina Cole. The Librarians love their work. They know they are essential and make a difference to peoples’ lives. They are committed to keeping their customers, prisoners and officers, stocked with books and love a good discussion. The library clearly plays a role in the normalization process and in there every individual is seen as an individual and treated with respect. Much was discussed about re-offending and cycles of crime with little optimism. However, the Librarian, Gil Lewis, has won an award for piloting The Big Book Share at the prison where prisoners read and record bedtime stories to send to their children. She also brings in authors and poets for workshops. Although in theory there is a statutory requirement to provide a library service for all (including prisoners) in practice that can just mean a few books on a shelf. It is clear we should be very grateful for these small beacons of society in the most difficult of situations.
We are delighted to announce that Kevin Crossley-Holland, prize-winning writer of many children’s books, well-known poet and author is coming to Nottingham High School. Best known for his King Arthur trilogy The Seeing Stone, Crossley-Holland is also celebrated for his translation of Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon, the Penguin Book of Norse Myths, his Viking books and British Folk Tales.
He is Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a patron of the Society for Storytelling, the European Storytelling Archive and has lectured in the U.S. and for the British Council. Next year, he will take on the role of President of the School Library Association and we are honoured to have him spend the day with us and run a workshop with Year 8 on November 30th before his diary completely fills up with much grander appointments.
Winner of the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children’s Award, the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal and the Tir na n-Og, Mr Crossley-Holland will be signing books in the Library during lunchtime. A selection of his books will be available including the newly published Bracelet of Bones, surely a contender for all the good book awards this year.
