November 2022 – Siana’s Teacher Librarian Musings

Responsibility for Resource Selection

While secondary school classroom teachers specialise according to their subjects, Teacher Librarians must resource the curriculum to be relevant and useful across the entire education frame. TLs must also be across the YA literary landscape. Teachers often do not have the time to develop expertise in this area and I have seen many teachers have knowledge of the books they themselves loved as teenagers, which may or may not be so relevant to the contemporary teenager!

There are dangers that TLs will select recreational reading resources that fall within their own genre interests, so students must have the opportunity to suggest and select books. Aside from having a suggestion box or giving opportunity in Wide Reading programs for students to suggest books, I love the idea of having selection excursions to book shops where students can hear from book sellers, pick up books and read blurbs to have a meaningful say in their school library’s collection.

While it’s vital that students and staff have input into the collection, the TL must have final say of acquisitions. This is because the TL is aware of the collection management policies that have been developed with the school ethos in mind. We had many students requesting a book that I understand is popular on #BookTok and is in many government school libraries, but as a faith-based school we could not include this book. The students were very welcome to borrow the book from a public library or purchase from a book shop!

AITSL Standard 3.4: Select and Use Resources

It is appropriate for all teachers to revisit the AITSL standards regularly to ensure we are improving our practice, and pinpoint the areas we can develop as professionals.

Now in my 8^th year of teaching, with much professional development and practice under my belt, I must be actively working towards the “Highly Accomplished” or “Lead” end of the spectrum. When reading through the details, I have more awareness of the standards I must focus on to fine tune my teaching.

One thing I am proud of as a teacher is that I am constantly seeking professional development in a number of forms: attending conferences, webinars and seminars; reading peer-reviewed research; listening to podcasts and having conversations with my colleagues.

In regards to Focus Area: 3.4, Select and Use Resources, I would evaluate myself in the “Highly Accomplished” stage, as I perform this task regularly in my role as TL for classes on a daily basis. I also create Libguides with quality resources for both staff and students on a range of topics across various curriculum areas for student assessment tasks.

In order to progress to the lead stage, I plan to create resources that are particularly suited for my school, which as a religious school has a unique curriculum layered across ACARA. I would also like to run some PD for staff on how to use the resources that we have and where to find them to ensure our fabulous resources are being used fully. I do have some plans for this and now need to execute the plan!

Watching several of the AITSL videos that relate to Focus Area 3.4 and the Accomplished area it is an important reminder to ensure that the tools and devices we use fit in with the curriculum and improve outcomes for all students. With regards to selecting Indigenous resources, it’s important to ask how we can apply this learning across the educational frame as learning about Indigenous knowledge and culture is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary.

Reflections on the 2021 Softlink Report

Looking at point 6.0 The School Library Space: 74% responded that they have a designated library in a separate room/classroom/floor/building. It is heartening to see that this is by far the majority. At my previous school, I was part of the 17% whose library was in an open-plan space and I cannot tell you how far from ideal this situation is. There was noise from all directions and people walking through the classes. Also, it was hard to know what has really happened when books went missing … I hope this 17% can be lowered as any school leadership team that plops their library in an open-plan space sends a clear message that the Library is not truly valued. It was surprising to see the 17% of independent schools have a designated library in an open-plan space …

In regards to 9.0 Promoting the Library and Resources, the top 3 avenues staff use to promote the library and resources, I thought that these were the obvious avenues that perhaps were not as effective. Do students even read their school newsletter? Library displays are effective for students who are actually visiting the library, what about for those students who don’t make visiting the library a priority? How can we use student-centric ways to promote library resources? Can we think of creative ways that a group of student library advocates could promote resources? Can we have students create #BookToks for our school communities? Perhaps the top 3 avenues might just be an “old-school” or teacher-centric approach to promotion of our libraries. The other responses (ie not the top 3) could perhaps be more effective for example: promotional videos, student clubs and hubs, Library blog (hopefully with posts written by students as well), events, author visits etc.

It was both sad and sadly validating to see that 68% of teachers are very low-moderately engaged with their school library. The school library is the beating heart of the school and we TLs must be very proactive to engage the teachers. We must work collaboratively and be creative in our marketing campaigns to ensure teacher engagement with the library. The more teacher engagement we have, the more student engagement we have, the more our outcomes will improve and our school communities will be well-read and ready to make positive contributions to society.

I found the 3.2 Budgets by School Size not so informative, as budgets can cover different items. At my previous school, we had a much smaller budget however we did not need to purchase the teachers’ textbooks as this was up to the individual departments. Interesting that a reason for an increase in the library budget includes augmented staff and student interest in the library, which goes back to my point in the previous paragraph: we need to be actively engaging staff (which will flow onto the students) with our library programs and resources.

Interesting to read 4.1, Staffing by School Size. The actual reality does not quite match that of ASLA’s recommendation. How can TLs be effective in achieving the full potential of a school library: engage our community in solid research skills, academic honesty and build a culture of reading if we are understaffed? The reasons for staffing decreases (eg relocating TL to a teaching role, supporting other departments) are synonymous with the reports we are reading in the newspapers about teacher shortages. I understand that finding teachers at the moment is causing school leadership teams much stress and headache, however to redeploy TLs undermines the vital role school libraries play in our students’ education. TLs are also specifically trained to facilitate this role so to redeploy might be extremely detrimental.

To see that in government schools in 2021 we had on average 2.4FTE staffing in school libraries is woefully low. Also this is just staffing – what is the breakdown between TLs and library support staff? Our government school students are not receiving close to the ASLA recommendations, indicated by over half the respondents who said they were inadequately staffed. In NSW TLs are mandated in each school, though I would love to find out more about what this looks like in reality. Why is a TL not mandatory in every state and territory? Independent schools seem to have on average twice the level of staffing, and the advantage that these students would have is significant … if students choose to use it. Sometimes these privileges can be taken for granted. Even with the extra level of staffing, 54% Independent school respondents felt that the level was not adequate, however this could be also because of increased expectations from their senior leadership teams.

The tasks performed by school library staff seems consistent across all sectors and these tasks would be expected. I guess as I gain more knowledge and experience from this course, I could understand whether these tasks make the best use of the TLs expertise, or whether there could be other tasks to prioritise (such as curriculum development). In independent schools, the tasks reach also to information literacy and research skills programs, which is an appropriate and useful use of the TL’s expertise!

Interesting to see 10.6 Online Resources in Government Schools that 64% do not have eBooks or e-audiobooks in the library. I am guessing that because of the budgetary restrictions, students could easily gain access to these resources from the local library at the press of a button through the BorrowBox and StoryBox apps. Priority would have to be given to physical resources. This was certainly my justification at my previous school, though ensuring that all students acquired access to the local library apps was a big task! Likewise, with subscription databases, when budgets are tight it is very easy to use the State Library databases for free and again the challenge is ensuring that the students use them as opposed to Google.