Mad Meeting Month

Apologies for the break in transmissions. I do intend to contribute to my blog more regularly than every 5 or 6 weeks. Not long after I posted the first entry my PC at home died quite suddenly after years of loyal service. At the same time we were experiencing network problems in school. Hence the gap of several weeks. I am about to try to set up wireless broadband tonight. I know the broadband works and since my PC can't sit in the kitchen beside the main phone line socket wireless it is.

I attended a wheen of meetings during September -all of them important and producing benefits for our students and staff - but I am looking forward to spending a whole week in my own school.

Priority for this week is promotion of C.R.A.W. Towards the end of last year we decided to merge our separate Creative Writing Group and our Reading Club into one mega-group. Students named it the Creative Reading and Writing Club. Craw members are currently reading the titles nominated in the Scottish Children's Book Awards. They will be casting their votes at the start of November. More details at Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books. They are also beginining to write a group novel. I missed the meeting where they started this so am looking forward to finding out about it next week. Mrs Aitken, Ms Dallas, Mr Earle and Ms Hall from the English department run Craw jointly with me.

S1 students are nearing the end of their library induction. Last week we were looking at the fiction books in the library and how we organise them on the shelves. This proved to be a very messy activity with lots of reshelving for me at the end of each lesson but students are enjoying sorting bundles of books and some students are borrowing some of the titles after their task is complete. It also provides an opportunity for me and the class teacher to engage students in informal discussions about their favourite reading.

On 27th Sept I attended an away day with the rest of the Glow mentors in East Lothian. We were able to discuss the SETT conference which most of us attended for two days the previous week and begin to look forward to the roll out of GLOW next year. Glow is proving to include much more that I expected. I knew about the actual online resource content and that students would be provided with e-mail but had not fully understood the intention to support classroom teachers with their necessary administrative work. East Lothian will be one of the schools piloting the Glow portal in a few weeks time.

The secondary school librarians met on 1st September to discuss practical matters related to PECOS, Talis (our automated library system) and the collections of books we are loaned annually from East Lothian Library Service. We also spent a fair amount of time examining in detail the success schools are having by issuing departmets' textbooks via the library. The system works well and is growing - like Topsy- and librarians are finding the demands on their time mean that difficultt decisions about priorities are having to be taken. This is one area where some clerical support for librarians would be invaluable.

On 4th September the local editorial group for 4u readers met to discuss progress and plan our next contributions to the website and our showcase of the site at Celebrating Success at the Brunton Hall on 29th Sept. The 4ureaders site is produced on a national basis by several authorities. Bill Plain, Librarian at Knox Academy, is doing a sterling job as co-ordinator for East Lothian. It is an online magazine for 10 to 14 year olds which encourages reading and gives young people the chance to contiribute pieces of original writing as well as reviews and suggestions for titles and items for inclusion Our stand at Celebrating Success proved popular with visitors, thanks to the efforts of Charlie and Stephen, two students at Preston Lodge, who did the bulk of the presentation and chat, and their Librarian, Linda Bain who made sure the technology worked.

On 6th September I attended my first meeting of the Strategic Learning and Teaching Group 3-18.in my capacity as School Librarian Field Officer with East Lothian Library Service. One of the projects arising from the work of this group is an intergated cross-curricular project currently called Extreme Learning. The majority of school librarians attended the launch of this project on 13th September. Many of the skills which this project is intended to improve for pupils fall within the remit and area of expertise of the librarian. We are looking forward to the opportunity to work with primary and secondary students and teaching colleagues.

Fortunately the Extreme Learning meeting was after school. In the morning all of the school librarians attended the termly meeting we have with senior staff from the East Lothian Library Service. These meetings allow us to discuss both professional and educational issues and share information and ideas. For example job evaluation/single status, Curriculum for Excellence, Information Literacy, Scottish Schools Digital Network aka Glow, CPD, promoting online resources, 4ureaders and Celebrating Success.

The S1 Open Evening took place at DGS on 28th September. I enjoy taking part in this evening. It is one of the few opportunities I have to meet parents and show them what the school library has to offer their children. The rest of the time I am usually contacting them about, late, lost or damaged stock. It is also fun when former students discover how the library has physically changed since they attended school - i.e twice the size with a lovely garden outside the window.

To finish this quick catch up a question from a student to one of our Chemistry teachers.

Does Miss Johnston have a Wednesday off?

Guess which day of the week most of the meetings took place! :-)