Staff/Common Room

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Rachel

Glad to see you here! I am excited to hear that you are presenting to SLT soon as I have a similar presentation to do on the 22nd to our Primary Headteachers. Would you mind sharing your presentation and feedback you get in the forum, please? I would love to steal your ideas before I have to do mine. I have some old documents we made when we had a trial with one of our schools a few years back. I will share them if anyone thinks they would be useful. In order for this to be embedded, you definitely need SLT to have it within their curriculum policies otherwise when a teacher moves on you will have to start all over again or it gets lost.

Good Luck!

Elizabeth

 

[Emma Minter Participant]

Hi Elizabeth,

Good to hear from you, the IB does seem to open up discussion about IL and there is more scope to develop research skills sessions.  We are going to offer the Reflective Project as part of the IBCP next year and that will require students to research an ethical dilemma. I hope to work with the IB Co-ordinator to deliver a research session for our students taking this new course.

Best Wishes,

Emma.

[Kevin Sheehan Participant]

Hello. My name is Kevin Sheehan.

I am a Librarian at Poynton High School located in Cheshire. The reason I am joining this forum is to find out more about the FOSIL framework.  I am extremely passionate with regards to integrating information literacy into my school.  My dream is that one day in the future it will be incorporated into every ‘nook and cranny’ of the curriculum, a little like at Darryl’s school.  For the time being I deliver IL sessions on an ad-hoc basis, for those subject teachers who deem it a useful skill for students. When I am given this opportunity then a great deal of my energy and zest will go into its creation. I tend to ‘pick and mix’ the different IL approaches and frameworks matching it to the needs of the teacher, students and curriculum topic.  Though I am a complete fan of Carol Kuhlthau, therefore try to incorporate inquiry based learning whenever I can.  Another dream of mine is that one day I am able to focus on IL full-time rather than have to juggle it with other library duties and roles.

A little bit about my background. I do not come from a traditionally academic background, leaving school with very few GCSES.  Through sheer hard-work and determination I have gained a BA(Hons) in Information Library Management (Manchester Metropolitan) and an MA in Information Literacy (Sheffield University). Plus, I have been Chartered status since 2009.

I am a believer that effective IL skills can help you achieve anything you want in life, whether that be navigating the web for resources to support an EPQ project, or navigating your way through the London Tube system. It’s for everybody!

I am really pleased to meet you all. I am very much looking forward to the FOSIL journey.  Kevin.

[Jenny Toerien Keymaster]

Hi Kevin, I’ve merged your topic into this one so that you can join us all in the staff/common room – great to have you with us. We’re all on the same journey and we certainly wouldn’t claim to have reached every ‘nook and cranny’ of our school, but that is an inspirational goal! Looking forward to journeying together towards it.

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Kevin, Great to have you on board! I really feel that if we can work together and support each other our small victories will eventually become big ones. I too, still do adhoc lessons but am working towards making FOSIL more visible with the hope that someone senior will eventually ‘get’ what we are trying to do. Advocacy has an important part to play in this and the more we talk about it the more changes are likely to happen.

Having this website to push teachers to is a great way to help explain what we are about. It makes the talking easier I feel.

I too came to librarianship late. I left school at 16 and only qualified when I was 35, going on to achieve my Masters and then CILIP Chatershp and Fellowship. We all develop at different times and I think this is important to understand in our students too. They may not be ready to learn yet but if we give them a good foundation they will have to the tools to be ready when it is time for them.

[Madeleine Bransby Participant]

I’m Madeleine and have been at the Smallbone Library at Oakham School since 2013. I qualified in 2000 and worked in university libraries and investment bank libraries prior to moving to Oakham School.

I began at Oakham as Faculty Librarian for Social Sciences, Creative & Performing Arts and Computer Science for years 6 through to 13. The school already ran the IB Diploma and alongside our current move towards the MYP we have had a restructure of job roles within the library. Since early 2018 I have been Curriculum Librarian for Upper School, focusing primarily on years 12-13.

I already supported students with their IB Extended Essays and EPQs within my subject areas, as well as running sessions on referencing and resources. In my new role I am increasingly collaborating with teaching staff in the planning of inquiries or discussing how they can incorporate FOSIL into their teaching of a particular topic, when time and curriculum restrictions prevent a full-blown inquiry project.

I am also currently working on developing my understanding of how to support students with their academic writing and getting to grips with different requirements in different courses.

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Madeleine I am delighted to have someone here that we can talk to about using FOSIL with older students. I bet your university experience really helps too. I have a colleague who was a university librarian and her experience of researching data bases is so much better than mine. I look forward to hearing how you manage to work with teachers in a structured way even though it may not be the full blown inquiry. This is what we all really need to understand is that we may only get the chance to support a small part of the process but that this is just as important too.

[Bernadette O'Hanlon Participant]

I’m Bernadette, and I have been a Librarian at Oakham School since 2009. My current role involves overseeing the operational running of the Library and also Reader Development.

I came to Librarianship after having qualified as a teacher of English from the University of Wales and having taught English to non-native speakers in Japan.

I see my role in Reader development closely aligned with the spirit of the inquiry process, for it is a human trait to be curious and to care what happens next, be this in a work of fiction or an inquiry project. I am also concerned with the impact that online reading has on the quality of thought that comes from it and after having read Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come home: The reading Brain in a digital world, I am keen to advocate quality time for reading in school.

I look forward to engaging with you on this journey.

[ischoolpam Participant]

Hi Everyone

I’m Pam McKinney, I’m a lecturer at the University of Sheffield Information School, and I have a strong interest in the relationship between Inquiry-based learning (IBL) and Information Literacy.  In 2005 I started working as a Learning Developer for a HEFCE- funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CILASS) based here at the University, that aimed to support the development of approaches to IBL in Higher Education, and it was my responsibility to support the Information Literacy strand of our activities.  The resources, including case studies and the Sheffield Companion to IBL, are still available on the IBL @ Sheffield website.

Since starting work as a lecturer in 2010 I have continued to practice and research IBL and IL in my own teaching.  I recently passed my “PhD by Publication” which allowed me to bring together my research into IBL and IL, and this is available online through the White Rose eTheses website. I teach on the Information Literacy modules offered to students on the face-to-face and distance Librarianship programmes.

I heard Darryl speak at the LILAC conference, last month, and I was inspired to join this community. I am keen to explore how research could support the development of IL and inquiry in schools.

I am on twitter as @ischoolpam

[Rachel Chavez Participant]

Hello,

I see that I am the third Rachel to introduce myself! I am a solo Librarian at a small Sixth Form College in Norfolk. Our students can and do come to us from a range of high schools across the county and from abroad. This year I have become more involved with helping to deliver the taught aspects of the EPQ and would like to integrate the FOSIL cycle into my sessions. I would also like to get those subjects which involve coursework at A Level involved.

I qualified as a Librarian in 2006 and completed my Chartership in 2010. This year I am working towards my revalidation. Prior to joining Dereham Sixth Form College in 2015 I worked as a Senior Librarian at an FE/HE College in Surrey.

[Lucy Breag Participant]

I’m Lucy and have worked in the library at Oakham School since 2001. I came here on a one year contract and eighteen years, and several different job titles later, I am still here but doing a job far removed from the one I started out doing. After several years of concentrating on the recreational reading/reader development side of working here, while maintaining my interests in the Lower School curriculum and MFL throughout the school, the rising profile of FOSIL within school led me to taking on the role of Curriculum Librarian for Lower and Middle School, i.e years 6 to 11.

Developing and resourcing FOSIL inquiries across the whole range of subjects taught in school is challenging. It means I am constantly making new acquaintances among teaching colleagues; learning about completely new areas of the curriculum; and FOSIL-ising topics that subject teachers would like their pupils to explore. The more recent introduction of the MYP at Oakham has certainly increased interest in inquiry learning and that is something I am currently trying to learn as much about as possible.

[Stéphane Goldstein Participant]

Hello… I’m Stéphane, and am Executive Director of InformAll (http://www.informall.org.uk) , a research and policy consultancy that specialises in information and digital literacy and which I founded in 2015. I’m also the Advocacy and Outreach Officer on CILIP’s Information Literacy Group, and a member of its Knowledge & Information Management Group. I’ve been a researcher and research manager for several years, having published reports and articles on information literacy and other themes relating to the information and data environment. I’ve produced material for organisations in the information world including CILIP, SCONUL and Knowledge Exchange. I set up InformAll with the aim of helping to develop evidence-based awareness of the importance and relevance of information literacy, having previously worked at the Research Information Network, where I undertook and supported projects addressing not just information literacy, but also open access, open science, the role of libraries in supporting research and research data management. I’m a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Although I have no experience of working in school settings, I’m interested in how information literacy can and should contribute to a well-rounded education system, not least in terms of encouraging competencies such as critical thinking, evidence-based learning and discerning approaches to the use, sharing and creation of information. I’m interested too in raising awareness, particularly among policy-makers and civil society, about the importance and relevance of information literacy not just for the education of young people, but as a set of lifelong abilities.

I’m quite a political individual, and outside I have a long-standing interest in politics, international affairs and history, coupled with organisational responsibilities in political/community activity.  My other (and less nerdy) interests include photography, cooking, reading and hill-walking.

[Nigel Lashbrook Participant]

Dear Fellow Members of The FOSIL Group,

In a world where sustainability must be at the forefront of our minds, there can be no greater challenge than to ensure that the children of today are prepared for the road ahead and all the challenges that their world will bring. At Oakham our vision is to fully embrace that challenge and to do so we must enable every student to learn effectively and discerningly for themselves. This is formally encapsulated in one of our six strategic priorities which places the Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning (FOSIL) at the heart of learning at Oakham.

As educators we cannot simply be concerned with only the learning of our own students, but as all responsible citizens with the means, however limited, to help others to learn, we must share our ideas and practice with likeminded people around the world. This is why we established The FOSIL Group – a community that we are confident will bring together ideas, perspectives and best practice from many different schools and related institutions across the UK and beyond.

Our children must be equipped to be able to ask questions, make inquiries for themselves and be discerning of the information that all too often is presented to them in a poorly researched, inaccurate, and sometimes harmful way. FOSIL is a powerful tool for doing this, and its development at Oakham has been a remarkable one, but I predict that its future in the hands of this vibrant community will be more remarkable still.

As I move on from Oakham after 10 incredibly exciting years, I look forward to hearing and hopefully playing a part in the ever growing momentum of FOSIL.

Nigel

[Caroline Roche Participant]

Hello I am Caroline Roche and I have been a school librarian for over 25 years.  I am currently the Chair of CILIP’s School Libraries Group, and have had the pleasure of working with Darryl for a few years, and seeing this resource develop from an idea to this wonderful website.

I have run a unit with Year 7 students over the Spring Term, but for next time I will be looking at scaffolding the task with some of the information literacy templates from here – it is great!

Looking forward to interacting with all of you – Caroline

[Nathan Boshoff Participant]

Hello everyone!

I am a Computer Science teacher at Oakham School and I’ve been lucky enough to be working in a department which has taken full advantage of inquiry-based learning through FOSIL since the very beginning. Although my teaching journey started in the Maths department, I’ve quickly become excited with the innovation that is happening in Computer Science.

Here is a link to our Year 7 unit regarding an inquiry into the question of whether a brain is a computer : Is My Brain A Computer?

This is just the tip of the iceberg of our FOSIL journey. We have already started the process with our Year 8 and 9 groups (What is a digital time-capsule; Can we use technology to look after plants?) and the success our pupils have had is astounding. The most exciting part of FOSIL for me is how smoothly it scales up through the years at school. We have had pupils in Year 7 deliver the results of their inquiry to the same standard as those delivered by Year 12. This is most definitely not a reflection of sub-standard inquiry skill by our upper-school, but instead a testament to how versatile the FOSIL inquiry process actually is.

I can’t wait to see how our junior pupils apply what they’ve learned as they progress through their academic journey and I look forward to sharing it all with you here on this forum.

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