My name is Anne Chowne. I have been a teacher librarian for over 30 years.
And I'm lucky enough to work
in this beautiful, brand-new, purpose-built library.
You have a nip around here, girls. There you go.
For the first time, I'm actually working in a team
with other staff in the library.
We have another teacher who works .7, Denise.
She works as the other teacher librarian.
We have a full-time library technician
that keeps everything going for circulation and books on the shelves.
We have an aide who actually comes in for about six hours a week,
who helps out with sometimes cataloguing, sometimes shelving.
Whatever is needed.
As well as volunteer parents.
When we set up the library, I felt it was really important
to have a space designated for the story time.
And I was fortunate enough to find this great, magical, colourful chair,
that just evoked that for me.
And I think it is also now a focal point for the children.
They just love coming there.
They know that we're going to go read a book
and go off somewhere imaginary.
So poor old Nicholas goes off to bed...
When we're planning the literature
that we're going to use with the children,
we obviously pick good quality.
We want to have fun with it.
Any of the activities we plan around the books,
we don't want it to be dirge work.
We want them to be excited with the different ways
and different responses that they could be.
So sometimes we will put them on the computer
to draw a picture to respond to the book.
Sometimes we might go get them to answer a question on the iPad.
So we're using the ICT to make them want to do it,
but we're also trying to still keep
that love of literature and not kill it off.
Usually in a week, we have 35 classes come through the library
for a 40-minute lesson.
Sometimes we will put the two classes together and do a session.
Sometimes we'll teach them separate.
But often we do use the groupings
when you see them doing the different activities,
whether it be on the computers, the iPads, or doing a dice activity.
We will often pair them up.
We will use that, we use the older students
to buddy up with the younger students.
First thing in the morning,
especially Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
when we have all our classes - we have 12 classes just about every day.
And we can have up to a thousand books come back
that are returned in the morning, so we're ready for all the kids
to borrow in each of their sessions throughout the day.
I got some really good responses from them when we were reading,
and they were talking about the illustrations,
and that was really good.
Now, as far as the group work goes, I think the only thing
we've really got an issue with is probably using the dice.
DENISE: How did we go with borrowing today?
I was pretty happy. We had most of the children borrow.
There's probably three or four still, regulars,
that we're probably going to have to encourage a bit more.
I would like to see kids moving away from certain series.
I had one person looking at the, you know, the Geronimo Stilton.
-And that's all they want. -Just to move them off. Yeah.
Just with Rita, her English is coming along,
but we've really just got to watch what she brings up to borrow.
DENISE: Just to make sure it's appropriate for her level.
ANNE: Yeah. And I think really watch...
She's looking at the pictures, that's good,
but maybe some of the simpler text picture books,
just to support her reading and what's going home.
Because her parents don't have much English either, at home.
So we need to encourage her to be able to read something.
So it's got here, "I'm a bug. I'm a snug little bug."
Can you hear some rhyming words?
OK, everyone. Nice to see you all here.
For lunchtime. We're just going to go in an orderly fashion.
But I think, because we've got the preps here,
first we might let them in first, don't you think?
STUDENTS: Yes.
I always want to create a balance between books and the ITC.
The preps love coming into the library. They'll race to the iPads.
They happen to be the closest classroom to the library
so they're often up here first.
And that's what they really love.
So you've got to graft that enthusiasm,
but you've also got to balance it
with still wanting them to get that love of reading.
Especially at lunchtime, the children actually own what they want to do.
They've got a fairly wide choice of what they can do, within reason.
They might be...join up with the chess club.
They could be reading, they could be working on the computer.
They could be doing any of those things.
The reasoning behind opening the library at lunchtime
and before and after school
is that the children start to take ownership of the library.
And it's really a place for them.
I think our students need to be encouraged
as much as possible to read, and to want that love of reading.
I think we also try and skill them up to be discerning readers,
so that we're trying not only to discern
good literature and bad literature,
but we're also trying to make them
think about the information that they're exposed to.
That they can think critically about that information.
I think anything that we do here in the library
needs to impact on student learning.
We are constantly reviewing what we're doing.
So how are we going to know?
Some of that is going to be anecdotal from our observations
that we have of the students.
Some of it is going to be just Denise and I talking together.
Whether it did work or it didn't work.
We'd look at any statistics we have to see
if the children's borrowing has improved.
So we'll use that knowledge.
And whatever feedback we would be getting from teachers themselves.