School Library Development Framework

Speakers

• Voice-over: Maxine Ramsay, Facilitator National Capability, National Library Services to Schools

• Mike Anderson, former Principal, Waimairi School

• Anna Ashby, Deputy Principal, Knights Stream School

• Andrew Clarke, Year 7 Dean, St Bernard's College

• Alice Perillo, Learning Support Coordinator, Royal Road School

• Matt Robinson, Library Manager, Waimairi School

• Paulina Watson, Year 9 Dean, St Bernard's College

The School Library Development Framework

Voice-over: A great school library is a place of inspiration. It's a safe space that's welcoming and engaging that fosters the growth of new knowledge, skills and a lifelong passion for reading and learning.

Each school community has unique characteristics, and the National Library is here to help you to create a library that's just right for yours.

This is where our School Library Development Framework comes in. The framework is a guide made up of 8 elements that work together to help you create a great library.

Let's take a closer look at each one.

School vision

The first step in developing your library is to ensure you have a clear vision which is aligned with your school's goals and aspirations for your students and the school community.

It provides a solid foundation for library development.

Leadership and expertise

Once you've developed a vision for the library, you need both leadership and expertise to ensure it's achieved.

Effective leadership is needed to ensure the library is recognised as a vital part of the school community.

Strong leadership ensures that your library has the support, resources and expertise needed to make a valuable contribution to student learning and well-being.

Leadership

Mike Anderson speaking in his school's library: It was a long process, but we’re certainly glad that we took the time to do it, and it involved lots of hard work, lots of stakeholders.

The first part of it was with the staff, getting an understanding of their vision about how a library fits into a primary school’s curriculum, because it’s not off the side, it’s at the heart of the curriculum.

So, once we had enough understanding and buy-in, that’s why we would want to re-develop a school library, we then looked to — not rushing to implement what we had already seen or knew — but went out and looked at new horizons and new possibilities.

Anna Ashby in her school's library: The Establishment Board of Trustees were determined that there would be a school library at our new school, and ring-fenced the money that was provided by the Ministry for that purpose.

They also chose this space to be, a kind of a central space, that was important. So it was in a central part of the school so that all children would feel, and teachers would feel, comfortable coming here.

Expertise

Voice-over: A great library team includes staff and teachers with a mix of knowledge and skills.

They understand the school's vision and your learners’ needs so that they are able to work together to design and deliver great services to match these needs.

At the same time, your library team works closely with students to help them develop their agency as readers and learners.

Mike Anderson: When it came to appointing a new library manager — it was quite a sought-after position, it's a beautiful facility — we had many people who knew libraries inside out.

But the person we appointed, Matt, stood out because he really understood the nature of the connection between the library and learning, not just literacy learning but all learning. And he outlined for us in his job interview, his vision.

And it’s been an absolute delight to see Matt now having the autonomy and agency in his space, in here, to now bring it to life.

And all of the things that he promised and said he’d like to explore have now become material in front of our eyes, which is really exciting.

Andrew Clarke in his school's library: As an English teacher, there are books that I enjoy, there are stories that I enjoy, and if a boy comes to me and says, you know, ‘I don’t really love reading’ I can suggest those books.

And if he doesn’t like those books, I’m kind of out of my rope.

Emma comes in and she’s, she knows so much more about the stories, about the types of books, the information that’s available in the library. She can point any boy in the area of their interest, which is, yeah, hugely valuable.

Library services

Voice-over: The combination of the 2 elements, leadership and expertise, helps accomplish the vision, while also influencing the range, diversity and effectiveness of services provided by the school library.

Anna Ashby: We have a school strategic goal, and one of our strategic goals is that we will be providing a caring and inclusive learning environment, and we feel very strongly that our library is part of that.

The other part of our strategic goal that our library fits in with is that we are really doing a boost on literacy teaching and learning, and increasing the capabilities of our staff and students for being readers and becoming literate.

So we are excited about children loving coming here and we have a great turnover of books with our collection.

Voice-over: Your library is more than just a space. It's a hub of support, inspiration and growth for every member of your school community.

The library services play a vital role in supporting the entire school community by offering resources and support that promote teaching and learning and a deep love for reading.

They also ensure that every student has equal opportunities for success.

The nature and success of each service provided by the school library, are shaped by a combination of 4 key factors: place, collections, connections and access.

Place

A well-designed library space, both physical and online, serves as a place for innovative teaching and learning, where it's easy to find and use the books, resources, and support available.

It should be a central place where students, parents and whānau all feel a sense of belonging.

This is also where your collection resides to ensure equality of access and choice for all of your learners and teachers.

It needs to be inviting and flexible, a place where people can meet, read, learn or play, together or alone.

Mike Anderson: The space is a community meeting place. It's designed for external groups using it out-of-hours.

All of the shelving is mobile and so it converts into a church at the weekends. It becomes a meeting space in here for many things, and this is probably the most frequently attended facility within the school for parents and whānau coming in for anything at all.

This morning, it hosted about 20 new parents, who’ve got kids about to turn 5 years old and start school, for an orientation meeting.

In the evenings, the PTA can be found in here. So it's alive and living, so much more than just the 6 hours of school a day — that's really important.

Anna Ashby: We engaged early on with the National Library with an advisor. We were fortunate that she was able to take us to a number of different schools in Christchurch and look at their libraries.

So we visited schools that were established schools and had had libraries for a long time, schools that were newer, schools that had library spaces that were sort of integrated as not only a designated library space.

And we looked at all those different libraries and the way they had their shelving, and the way their collection was managed, and that was very helpful for us to get a clear idea about what we wanted to do going forward.

Collections

Voice-over: Your collection of books and other resources is an essential part of your school library. It's a treasure trove of information and stories, providing a wide array of choices for students to explore based on their interests and abilities.

It also offers different perspectives to help students understand themselves and the world around them.

A great school library collection constantly adapts to meet students' learning needs and reading preferences while embracing the diversity of the school community.

Alice Perillo: We have a fantastic book collection. Our principal does put quite a sizable budget behind that.

I think one of the things that's really important is that, actually, staff do see the value in reading for enjoyment and reading for pleasure, not just learning to read, but actually really enjoying books, loving books, and knowing about books.

Matt Robson, sitting in his school library: Something that I’m definitely going to be doing in the next term or so is increasing our stock of graphic novels, ‘cause the range these days is just unbelievable, everything from classic fiction to sci-fi to New Zealand history has been turned into graphic novels. So I'm finding it's a really great way of getting children into books.

Anna Ashby: Once we decided that we were definitely going to be having a library, that [then] we realised that we would need a book collection.

So, we worked with a book supplier who chose our selection for us. We gave them a brief, that we were interested in having a really high interest, non-fiction selection.

I worked with a particular book selector, and she would select up baskets for me, which I would check up on from time to time.

We got our books from the book supplier shelf-ready, so that they had been covered already — that was a slight extra charge for that but we felt that it was really worth it.

And so we were fortunate that, by the time our library opened at the end of the first week of school, children were able to issue books.

Connections

Voice-over: Supportive connections matter for teaching and learning.

The school library connects people with the information, stories, and other resources they need.

It's also a place where people in your school community can come together, including parents and whānau. And it can connect learners with the National Library’s resources, writers and illustrators, other libraries, and organisations in the wider community that also support reading and learning.

Paulina Watson speaking in her school's library: Our library is a huge centre point.

It connects people with shared interests that may not have known each other before, not only through the reading, through the use of resources, it’s like through the 3D games, it's through the chess games, and the board games.

It's where like-minded students can develop — what in my head is like — lifelong relationships. To know that they're not alone with that shared interest, I think is extremely important.

Anna Ashby: Something that we are working towards now is developing our digital library and we are working with the Christchurch city libraries in order that we can make the most of their resources for our digital library.

Access

Voice-over: Access is crucial for everyone to feel included and supported in using the library's resources.

Your library staff, services, technology, policies and procedures, should all work together to enable and promote access to everything the library has to offer and enhance the school community's wellbeing.

Paulina Watson: The library opens early in the morning and stays past 3 o'clock. That is one of the most powerful resources that to me that our students can be offered because, yet, they can remain onsite. There's a tuakana-teina model that works with the year 13 students working alongside like the year 9 ones.

All the resources are here for them to participate fully, actively, they're not under stress, there's support here. And to be able to say to them — or actually, it's the other way around — for them to be able to say to you ‘Miss, if I stay in the library after school will you ring my whānau and let them know?’ and you're, like, ‘Sure!’ I said.

And that's a really positive, powerful phone call you can make home because many of our boys will never admit to not having access to a library, not having access to a laptop at home, and yet you know it's true. So, it empowers them because it provides them with resources where they're not under pressure but it's a very safe, supportive learning environment.

Use the framework to create an amazing library

Developing your school library can be complex, but we’re here to support you.

The School Library Development Framework empowers you to create a library that is tailored to your school’s unique needs.

Whether you are changing part of your library service, or planning a complete transformation, the School Library Development Framework can help you create an amazing library, one that nurtures student learning, wellbeing and a passion for reading.

This transcription

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