School Library

Year Plans

A way of implementing school strategy and meeting

curriculum requirements

Maria Eriksen Britt

Municipal Association of School Libraries in Denmark

Denmark

A small country in Scandinavia

5,5 mill. inhabitants

Consists of 98 municipalities

1700 schools

10 years of mandatory school for all children

School Libraries in Denmark

All public schools must have a school library (1964).

All school libraries must have professionally trained staff or staff in training.

All school librarians must be teachers and have practiced teaching for several years before becoming a school librarian.

The school librarian education consists of a basis module of 120 hours and two p.d. modules of each 246 hours.

School Library Curriculum

No curriculum in Denmark

Must support subject curriculums

Guides teachers in lesson planning

Assists in choice of teaching

materials

Municipal Association of School

Libraries in Denmark

Board of 8 politicians, 2 professionals

and 1 interest group representative

MunicipalitiesPrivate schoolsPublic schools

OtherOrganizations

And Cooperation

partners

Employees Advisory board of professionals

School Library of the year

Founded in 2007

Issued twice: 2007/2008 and 2008/2009

Three finalists each year

One winner and two runner ups

Hillerødsholmskolen runner up 2007/2008

Why Make Year Plans?

Implement pedagogical strategy

Help meet curriculum requirements

Qualify the Information Literacy teaching

Hillerødsholmskolen

850 students between the age of 5 and 16

60+ teachers

The school library is open and staffed 32 hours a week

12 hours a week there are 2 trained school librarians in the library

The school library staff

3 trained school librarians

1 IT specialist

Part time helpers shelving books and other tasks

Specialist teachers from the pedagogical staff

The Catalogue

29 pages

21 different activities

At least 2 activities for each class

Different levels of participation

Information Literacy and IT

Weekly Library Hour – 0-5th grade

Information Literacy – 2nd, 4th and 6th grade

Media Education – 3rd, 5th and 7th grade

IT Course – 3rd grade

Search Skills – 8th grade

Project Management – 8th and 9th grade

Levels of Participation

School library activity

Cooperation activity

Class room activity

School Library Activity

All 2nd graders

“Star race”

Groups of 4 or 5

Find their way and solve tasks about literature

Cooperation Activity

Offered to all 5th grades

“Graphic Novels”

Introduction to the genre

3 weeks of reading and working

Intranet as a tool of communication

Questionnaires, multiple choice quizzes and making websites

Class Room Activity

All 7th graders

“The Newspaper in the Education”

Produce an entire newspaper

Learn to use the layout program Publisher

Planning and teaching by classroom teachers

School library prepares students and teachers

The school library is the contact between teachers and national planners

Other Subjects

“Art Detectives” – Arts & Crafts

“The Murder of Johanne Jensen” – ICT (movie editing)

“Photo Competition” – Danish, Arts & Crafts, ICT (photo editing)

“Melved – the case” – Danish, Social Studies, Biology, Math & Physics

“Palestine Conflicts” – English, Social Studies

Important points

Offers activities to classes and teachers

Activities based on teacher’s lesson plans

Activities based on need, desire and experience

Good examples of integrating ICT

Good planning facilitates extended cooperation between SL and teachers

Cooperation with School

Management Listens to School

Library ideas

Gave mandate to decide mandatory and voluntary activities

Focus on reading and IT skills

The Impact

Higher level of participation in school library activities

Teachers have more time for students

Less need for rules and guidelines

School library staff know the students better

Teachers are more aware of school library competencies

School library is better able to adapt teaching to support teacher’s plan and curriculum

Important Notes

Catalogue must be issued before teacher planning

Activities must be easy for teachers to engage in

Always provide teachers and students with necessary information

Don’t invent a new catalogue each year. REUSE!

The goal is to:

Facilitate good and inspiring teaching

Help meet curriculum requirements

Include Information Literacy, ICT and other skills in the normal teaching