Love Libraries and #libday8

Every time I see the Library Day in the Life project I mean to join in but never find the time, but I felt it was worth making the effort to tell you about today what with it being National Libraries Day tomorrow.  Linking in with the CILIP Shout About School Libraries campaign, today was dedicated to School Libraries, yay!

So, a day in the life of CazApr1, Librarian in a school of approximately 600 pupils.  Normally working alone but 2days a week with a fellow Librarian:

7.30am Pick up the newspaper.
7.45am Unlock the Library: the queue outside can vary from 5 to 20 kids, this morning it was a small crowd - hopefully because they've remembered that Friday mornings are for quiet reading and revision only.  This is because at...
8am my breakfast club convenes: up to 10 Year 9 boys that have been highlighted as needing extra reading support.  Normally I spend the morning helping pupils with homework, chatting with regulars or helping them choose books, but on Fridays I leave the main space in the hands of a colleague while we go round the corner for some peace and quiet.  Today 7 of my group came and we played scrabble.
8.25am First bell - by this time there are normally 50-70 pupils in the room to clear out (up to 100 if it is bad weather) before...
8.30am Period 1: a Year 11 science lesson using the computers and books to research individual projects.
9.30am Period 2: planning a referencing and researching lesson for Year 10s, updating the in-house rewards system, e-mails*, a cuppa.
10.30am Break: again, if it is bad weather we'll get over 100 pupils in the library but that is far too crowded.  A member of teaching staff is in with me to help with crowd control so I spend the 15minutes tackling "low level negative behaviour" in amongst the usual requests for help finding books...today had the added bonus of handing out Love Libraries badges to my faves, and collecting final entries for my week's competiiton**
10.45am Period 3: Tidy up - tend to lend 40-50 books a day but reshelve far more!  Then preparing for the borough's school librarians meeting next week - we're planning a book quiz for March and I'm organising the guest authors and doing some of the quiz questions.
11.45am Period 4: Year 7 literacy group in to choose books, read, and do Accelerated Reader quizzes.  I sneak out to have my lunch for part of the lesson.
12.45am: Lunch break: similar to first break, with a different member of teaching staff, today we had about 80 pupils at any one time.  Loads came begging me for one of the badges but only pupils that regularly use me/the library properly got one - I told the others they need to borrow more books to maybe get something next time!
1.15pm Period 5: Year 8 English class in for their regular reading lesson (at least once a fortnight depending on the teacher's lesson plans) - we use Accelerated Reader for Years 7&8.
2.15pm Pupils in tutor: I update the AR records.
2.30pm End of the school day: About 30 pupils rush into the library -  some to carry on with homework, some to choose books, but lots to play draughts and chess - I often get roped into a game until...
3.30pm Officially my hometime, and actually today I got the last 6th formers out at 3.45pm - as they left they said "We love you Miss, have a nice weekend" - bless!

*Here's an email I sent to all teachers this morning:
"Tomorrow is National Love Libraries day and there have been things happening up and down the country all week as a build up. Today is dedicated to School Libraries (and School Librarians) so I thought I’d quickly highlight my Top Ten Tasks:

1. Raving about reading to teenagers and staff…talking about books we love, with a surprisingly high % of our pupils
2. Finding something appropriate for boys who ‘never read’ and getting a group of them to regularly come to a breakfast club
3. Providing book and electronic resources for teachers in and out of the Information Centre, and helping during lessons in the IC
4. Working with the transition group
5. Showing pupils better ways of researching and finishing homework
6. Crowd control before school, during breaks and after school
7. Managing the Accelerated Reader programme for years 7&8
8. Getting involved in dyslexia friendly/literacy/anti-bullying/g&t…
9. Choosing, ordering and cataloguing books
10. In recent months…Playing chess!

Not to mention competitions, events (some coming up soon!), newsletters, the CILIP Youth Libraries Group London work I do outside of school, sleuthing, reading and scribing in exams…and occasionally reading a book!"

**I had a Vampires vs Werewolves competition - tell me about your favourite paranormal creature (writing and pictures, made up or one you've read about) - with a few signed books as prizes and a couple of promotional bags.  I'm going to choose the winners on Monday and go to assemblies.

Pretty typical day really, kids often say lovely things but today I got extra because of all the badges I gave out - they didn't just take them as "love libraries badges", they said they wanted them because they love me!