North East members championing role of Schools Library Services and children’s libraries

If you believe in making a difference to children’s lives, reading engagement is something you should care about

That was the powerful opener from Andrew Ettinger, Director of Education, National Literacy Trust as he took the stage at the Connected Readers: Grow a Reading for Pleasure Culture Conference this week. The conference was a free, one-day event hosted by the North East Combined Authority to help educators build a reading culture among young people.

And right from the start, libraries were recognised as essential to tackling this challenge. Andrew shared that we need to start seeing reading engagement as a social justice mission, which requires everyone to be on board and recognise the role they can play in supporting children to read. With reading increasingly being seen as a niche pastime, he emphasised that this is a shared responsibility of everyone, and positioned libraries as having a key role in getting children engaged and excited about reading.

That message set the tone for the day, and our North East members were there to show exactly how libraries and Schools Library Services can help make it happen.

With a room full of mostly primary educators, alongside some secondary colleagues, our members ran 2 workshops designed to demonstrate the value of Schools Library Services and public libraries in supporting reading for pleasure.

First, Rachel Warkcup (North Tyneside School Library Service) and Deborah Whinney (Northumberland Schools Library Service) delivered Reading That Sparks Joy: unlocking the power of a Schools Library Service. A workshop all about sharing the secrets of how educators can use Schools Library Services to ‘lift the story off the page’ and children excited about reading.

The room was a mix of educators who already understood what a Schools Library Service was and others to whom it was completely new.

Out came the topic boxes and children’s books; including dual-language books, sensory books, early years resources, class reading sets, and some exciting artefacts including children’s toys of the past. These resources showcased the real value of Schools Library Services: giving teachers access to a huge range of materials and the chance to experiment with different hooks to engage children in reading and learning.

As Rachel and Deborah continued to share examples, there was a growing realisation across the room of just how valuable this support can be. For busy teachers, it offers an easy way to access a range of resources that can be tailored to the curriculum. It also helps stretch budgets, giving schools access to a huge range of children’s titles that can be swapped out termly, with no need to worry about replacing or refreshing stock.

As one attendee reflected, “It’s so hard to keep up with children’s publishers, and Schools Library Services do that work for you.”

There was a clear takeaway message: school library services may sometimes be seen as an added extra, but there was a real sense from the room that they should instead be recognised as a powerful and essential part of a school’s cross-curricular reading strategy.

In the afternoon, Jolene Dunbar (South Tyneside) and Denise Envy (Gateshead) delivered their workshop ‘Open the door to reading: Public libraries, families and the wider community’.

As attendees piled into the room, they were met with tables full of children’s books for an opening activity called Battle of the Books. Participants were encouraged to think like a child and grab the first book that they were excited about and share what drew them to it. Some chose books because of the beautiful illustrations. Others picked titles they knew their own children loved. Some were drawn to their favourite publishers, and one attendee even chose a book because Gladiators was their favourite TV show and the cover featured a gladiator.

In that moment, Denise and Jolene demonstrated the power of books to bring people together and generate excitement.

Their workshop challenged attendees to rethink what libraries are: vibrant community hubs that support children, parents and carers.

They encouraged attendees to think outside the box around increasing reading engagement by seeing libraries as partners schools can work with to complement their school priorities as well as offering a welcoming space that can extend reading engagement beyond the classroom.

Several attendees shared that they had already signed their whole school up for library cards and were embedding regular library visits as a habit. They spoke about how this had started to encourage parents and carers to take their children to the library too, something many had not done before.

The day was such a great opportunity to reach a different audience, strengthen partnerships and encourage more joined-up working between school library services, public libraries and schools.

Andrew opened the day by saying: “If you believe in making a difference to children’s lives, reading engagement is something you should care about.”

The bigger message, though, is that schools do not have to do this alone. Our North East members helped everyone in the room recognise the instrumental role libraries and school library services play in increasing children’s reading engagement and enjoyment.

By linking up with organisations in their communities, particularly public libraries and School Library Services , schools can unlock the support, resources and expertise needed to make reading for pleasure possible for every child.

A huge thank you to our members in North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside, Gateshead, Newcastle and Durham for presenting and exhibiting on the day and championing Schools Library Services and libraries for the role they play in supporting reading engagement.