[Ruth Participant]

Hi Kay,

What an interesting and thought provoking piece. Several things struck me as I was reading.

The first thing is that I wish my MSc had covered such useful and practical topics as these. I have long thought that the idea of Teacher Librarians as a stand alone qualification is something I’d like to pursue and something I’d really like to see developed in Library Schools here in the UK. Before I worked in schools I have previously had Librarian incarnations in the commercial, academic and public sectors and so I am very much learning as I go along.

I have been following FOSIL closely and am currently trying to get my leadership team to allow me time to develop a school wide approach to Inquiry based on FOSIL. Your article is perfectly timed,  I also need to carry out a radical weed of our non-fiction curriculum resource and had been thinking about building the Inquiry program first, looking at the units of study through which the program will delivered and buying resources that support both elements. I think this is the idea you’re discussing, unless I’ve misunderstood.

I battle with the idea of curating online topic based resources for my students. We have just decided not to subscribe to a popular online encyclopaedia because we thought that it was more important to teach students to source material according to CRAAP rather than knowing the database provided reliable information and therefore failing to look beyond it. With this same thought in mind, I think I prefer to open the discussion with students about source selection and if necessary make it part of the assessment criteria rather than making choices for them. I understand that purchases of physical resources are often limited by money and therefore free online material can fill a gap but generally I remain opposed to too much guidance.

I think the opportunity to share good resources, on this forum, could be really valuable especially to those of us with less school specific training or experience.

Thanks again for making me think,

Ruth

[Ruth Participant]

I am working on a couple of workbooks for 2 Year 9 project. The first is the IB Community Project which runs from September to February. This is only the second time it has happened here we are learning fast.

The second is an interdisciplinary project between music and languages looking at all types of music from around the world, from folk to pop via anything else with lyrics.

I am working hard to get teacher input and make two strong, hopefully clearly similar, workbooks that demonstrate the power of FOSIL to our year 9 students.

I will post whatever I produce here and will welcome feedback but if anyone is working on anything similar and would like to share thoughts I’d love more support. I have dug through the resources and will be using what I can.

Thanks,

Ruth

[Ruth Participant]

I just wanted to say that after hearing you speak yesterday, Darryl, I have managed to get a space in our senior management meeting next week to talk about FOSIL and how we can better prep. our EE students. The timing couldn’t have been better, so soon after the IB results. Thank you for reigniting the fire.

[Ruth Participant]

Hi all,

What a great community and an opportunity to take part in such collaborative work focused in the same direction as my professional interest. I’m Ruth and I’m the Librarian at Tonbridge Grammar School, Kent. We are an IB school working with the MYP, breaking for GCSEs and returning for to the DP. I have been here 2 years and since I joined I have been collaborating with staff to integrate Information Literacy into the curriculum. I don’t teach any ‘Library lessons’ aside from a general introduction to the catalgoue etc for years 7 and 12 (we take external students into the 6th form)

I am enjoying the challenge of integrating FOSIL with the ATL skills framework (IB attitudes to learning) and then matching this with our curriculum and trying to encourage staff to embrace the results into their planning and assessments.

I am grateful to have this group to share thought and ideas with.

Ruth

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