Ideas Bank for Secondary Schools

Enjoying Reading

The Secondary Schools Ideas Bank offers practical, innovative ideas for working with school libraries, schools library services and public libraries to inspire and motivate students to read for pleasure and purpose.

Secondary Schools can actively encourage students and their families to become library users and every library can reflect and celebrate the work of its local schools. The range of ideas included show how partnerships between schools and public libraries, school libraries and schools library services can work in practice.

Ideas Bank 

Annual events and festivals

For example, World Book Day, Prize Award Ceremonies, National Poetry Day, Children’s Book Week,  Family Learning Week and National Storytelling Week, provide ideal opportunities for linking to the school curriculum. Check www.booktrust.org.uk  and www.literacytrust.org.uk to find out about national events that can be used as a focus for these activities. 

Book Awards

Book prizes can be a great way to get teachers and students reading together and talking about books. You can find details of most national awards at  www.booktrust.org.uk/ or www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/awards.html.  Select a case study below to look at examples of local book awards

Enjoying Reading Case Study Links:

Carnegie Greenaway Shadowing

The annual Carnegie/Greenaway Shadowing Scheme can be used to develop joint working between schools and libraries. Information and support material can be found at www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/

Extended Schools

School Library Services can offer support for reading groups for secondary students, or family reading support in schools as part of Extended Schools – with public libraries linked in to themes and activities to provide a ‘seamless’ service.

Family Reading

Family reading gets the whole family developing the lifelong reading habit. Schools can help to link families who are non-library users to the range of services that libraries can offer.  By communicating well and working together, schools, schools library services and public libraries can offer families the following:

  • Special induction trips for families who have never been to the local library
  • A range of events, like dads and lads activities and teenage reading groups 
  • Special box loans of adult and young people's family reading titles from the School Library Service or public library, available at school 

Family and Adult Learning

Family Learning Week in October can provide a good focus for family events in libraries, promoted through schools to encourage parents to engage with young people's learning and improve their own literacy and reading confidence through programmes like the Vital Link.

Independent Learning Activities

School librarians can work collaboratively with teachers to design and implement independent learning activities to investigate simple themes linked to the curriculum.

Enjoying Reading Case Study Link:

Dads and Lads Schemes

These schemes identify books and other reading materials that link into men’s/boys’ hobbies and obsessions. Dads and their lads are invited to find out about the books and read them together, or to explore reading through magazines, newspapers, graphic novels and websites.

National Year of Reading

Visit www.yearofreading.org.uk  for the latest information on the year’s events.  Use the 12 monthly themes to provide a focus for NYR activities, for example, September: you are what you read...use this to get Year 7s to describe themselves via the books they read & link in with library displays about celebrities’ reading choices.

Book Programmes

Several book programmes support the aims of Enjoying Reading. They can provide great opportunities for activities about reading and foster links between libraries and schools. They include:

  • Booked Up provides a free book to each Year 7 pupil in England when they start secondary school
  • Boys Into Books supports reading by boys in secondary schools by providing high quality, relevant books that will be attractive to boys.

Parents’ Evenings

Public library staff can attend schools’ parent evenings to showcase services and offer advice on reading.

Quizzes

A pub-style quiz or challenge can generate discussion and enthusiasm around reading.  Quizzes can be structured in themed rounds with teams competing to win book and cash prizes. The concept is very successful in New Zealand, where 95% of schools take part with boys getting increasingly involved and high profile media coverage. For more information, see: http://www.kidslitquiz.com/

Enjoying Reading Case Study Link:

Reading Buddies

Buddy schemes help raise literacy levels, increase self-esteem and improve attitudes to reading as well as encouraging youngsters to read more adventurously. Libraries can help with training students to become reading buddies.  Students can also volunteer to visit libraries, assisting staff with family reading groups, nursery class visits, holiday activity groups, or the Summer Reading Challenge.

Enjoying Reading Case Study Link:

Reading Champions

The Reading Champions Scheme  Try inviting reading heroes from local sporting teams – or identified through the national Reading the Game sports motivation scheme to events to discuss books and reading, meet children, engage with young people and sign autographs.

Reading Connects

Reading Connects is a DCSF funded National Reading Campaign initiative that helps schools offer every student the experience of reading for pleasure. It provides schools with a support network which helps them to entice everyone associated with the school into a community where everyone can access books and enjoy reading.

Reading Groups

Reading groups provide a forum for young people to relax, share and develop their reading.  Members can find out much more about the books they read, share opinions about books, enjoy fun reading related activities, and can even have the opportunity to meet authors or chat with them online.  All of which both enhances their reading skills and drives enthusiasm for further, wider reading.

One County, One Book

For example, Liverpool Reads – a great way to get School Library Services, public libraries and schools to work together and involve local communities in reading the same book and sharing their responses.  Also good for generating local sponsorship.

Sporting Challenge

Students take part in a favourite sport, and read a relevant story or something like a match report, for instance, or browse a sport website, to win an invitation to a public library event with a local sports personality who talks about his/her favourite books and signs autographs.

Enjoying Reading Case Study Link: 

Study Support Clubs and Homework Centres

Where funding is available, libraries and schools can work together to make a new type of facility for young people – somewhere where they can access advice and support, information, ideas for reading, computers to access the internet or to prepare their work, plus refreshments and someone to talk to about their reading and learning needs.

Summer Reading Challenge™

The Summer Reading Challenge is a great way to keep children reading during the summer holidays – through their local library. Through Enjoying Reading, new Challenge materials for teachers to support the transition from Year 6 to Year 7 are being produced. Schools can encourage young people to join, and celebrate their achievement in the autumn term.

Training for Teachers: INSET

School Library Services and public librarians are experts in young people’s literature and can help teachers keep up to date with the latest popular and enriching reads.  Invite them to joint twilight sessions or INSET days to share their knowledge and generate book talk.

World Book Day

A great focus for libraries and schools to work together and do something different to celebrate books and reading.  Check out the books and ideas featured on the World Book Day website.

Young Cultural Creators

This visual literacy project for young people explores original works of art, artefacts, documents, and places of interest, linked to the work of young people's writers and illustrators. It inspires young people’s creativity in reading, writing and illustration and involves libraries, museums, archives, galleries, publishers and authors, working with students and schools.  See www.youngculturalcreators.com

Enjoying Reading Case Study Link: 

Using the Web

A link on the school intranet to the library web pages, encourages students to search the catalogue (most library catalogues are now online), and makes it easy for them to find out about their local library.  You can also link from the library website to local school websites.

Volunteering

School Library Services or library staff can be key partners in enabling young people from local schools to gain work experience in their local library.  The programme of work needs to be carefully structured to ensure it is appropriate and varied. Students can design or help create displays; act as a reading advisors for other young people; help with story-times, shelving and tidying the library, or answering queries. Volunteers are especially welcome to help in the summer with the Summer Reading Challenge. Some public libraries participate in local-authority recognised volunteer accreditation schemes such as Duke of Edinburgh and the Youth Achievement Award, offering recognition for volunteering in the library.

Young People as Library Advocates

Engage local young people to help promote books and reading in schools, in libraries and in other communities venues (e.g. at events and festivals). Derbyshire Libraries Book Pushers are a fantastic example of teenage reader volunteers, trained by library staff and recruited from local schools.

If you have an example of a successful school & library partnership, please let us know through our feedback page.

If you would like to send us your case study of a school & library partnership project, please do so through our submit content page.

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