The heart of creativity

Madelyn Travis discusses the place of libraries within our schools.

In the middle of discussing his latest novel in an interview for Booktrust, Michael Morpurgo breaks off to make an impassioned plea in support of school libraries. ‘The library to me is the heart of creativity in any school,’ he says.

Yes, it should include technology and CDs and DVDs, but books should be at the heart of the school. If anybody asked me to open a library I’d go like a shot because it’s so important that they’re there.

Certainly, librarians and organisations involved professionally with books would agree, but others have yet to be convinced despite the growing body of evidence that reading for pleasure is good for children.

Booktrust spoke to a primary school reading volunteer (who wished to remain anonymous). A lover of books, she expected her visits to the school to be rewarding. Instead, she found herself worried by the experience. Although many of the children were relatively proficient readers, few actually enjoyed reading.

They chose books from the library – a set of shelves in the hallway - without any guidance from an adult, and as a result selected books seemingly at random, without considering reading level or subject matter.

‘Some kids read very well but never on their own, so they chose easy, boring books and went on like that, never developing a real interest in books,’ she observed. ‘I asked every kid if they read at home and the answers were straight down socio-economic lines.’

The volunteer found that even those children who did read for pleasure at home chose books in school which they found uninteresting; consequently, reading in school was considered a chore by nearly all of the children. Their lack of enthusiasm seems to tally with the results of the 2001 Progress in International Reading Literacy study, which found that 13% of children in England disliked reading, compared to 6% internationally. A 2003 survey of nine- and 11-year-olds by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found that, compared with pupils of the same age in 1998, children were more confident readers but enjoyed it less.

Yet recent research for the National Literacy Trust found that children themselves believed that they should be encouraged to enjoy reading, both at home and at school. For Kathy Lemaire, Chief Executive of the School Library Association, it’s a matter of equal opportunities. ‘School libraries are more accessible than public libraries, and the children don’t have to buy the books. Even if there are no books in their home, they’re in the school. It’s unfair that some students should not have a good range of books available and a person who can help and guide them. All children should be entitled to an effective school library.’

Sadly, though, it seems they’re not. Some primary schools are simply too small to have a dedicated library, so out of necessity make do with a box of books in the corner of the classroom. Many have shelves of books in the hallway. Other schools do have a library, but, because of space constraints, use it for other activities.

For some, the library is used for its intended purpose, but its potential as a resource is wasted because some headteachers are not convinced of the importance of allocating resources to the library. NFER data reveals that many primary school headteachers put books at the bottom of their spending priorities, along with the stationery.

In secondary schools, Britain spends less money on books than any other developed country. According to Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust, ‘Very few people would say libraries are a bad thing, but few people would actually go to the stake for them. As Jonathan Douglas recalls, ‘The only year when libraries became an important priority was during the National Year of Reading (1998-99). Then they leapt up the list.’

The 2006 SLA School Librarian of the Year, Anne-Marie Tarter, is Librarian at Ripon Grammar School. She agrees that the low status of libraries is a problem. ‘We’re fighting such an uphill battle because school libraries and school librarians are not statutory in this country. You get individual pockets where they’re working as we do and everybody thinks the library is the heart of the curriculum. Then you get schools where they’re closing the library because they have the internet. We’re fighting for survival here.’

Part of the problem, perhaps, is that outside of the education sector, mentioning the words 'books', 'school' or 'library' – let alone all of them in the same breath - causes people’s eyes to glaze over. It’s computers that are sexy - and certainly no one would wish to deny their immense value as an educational resource. Yet a single light bulb for an interactive white board costs some £350, while Booktrust’s School Book Spending Survey reveals that less than £10 per child per year was spent on books in nearly a third of UK primary schools in 2001-2002. The recommended figure is £53 a head. It’s likely that some headteachers are diverting their limited resources to computers because they’re getting the message that ICT is more important than books.

Certainly the impression received by researcher Steve Hurd of the Open University was of a tendency on the part of Ofsted inspectors to emphasise ICT at the expense of books, because, he believed, ‘the DfES has asked Ofsted to…ask schools to submit information on the currently favoured ICT spending, but not on books’. To put books and ICT into opposing corners is to ignore their potential if used together. Children who enjoy reading learn to think creatively, engage with ideas, encounter new worlds. Their regular exposure to correct spelling and grammar enables them to learn how to use language more easily. Think how much more effectively such students would be able to use the internet and how much someone without that grounding would miss out on. Of course new technology is important, but it’s obvious that books provide the foundations for a child’s educational future. Isn’t it?

Let’s look at the facts. Researchers at the Open University, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University found that spending £100 per primary school pupil on books has a greater impact on average test scores across English, maths and science than the same amount spent on ICT or staffing. A series of statewide studies in the United States found that students at schools with better funded school libraries achieve higher than average test scores regardless of socio-economic factors and education levels among adults in the community.

Similarly, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that reading for pleasure had a positive effect on academic achievement, with children from poorer backgrounds who enjoyed reading performing better in tests than those from more affluent homes who did not read for pleasure. Perhaps those who remain unmoved by the idea of reading for fun will be convinced by the proven positive impact of reading on children’s test results.

Of course, having a well funded library isn’t the whole story; it’s also about having knowledgeable staff who understand how to make the library into a resource for the whole school. Those that don’t have such staff can make use of Schools Library Services (SLS), regional organisations that act as a one-stop shop for the school library. Sue Jones is Hertfordshire’s Library Service Development Manager: Children, Young People and Schools. She describes the many services the SLS can offer:

Say a school has 250 books a year. They return 250 books that are worn out, that nobody is reading. They also get one non-fiction project per class per term and one fiction pack of new titles per term. They’re getting the reading for pleasure and the reading promotion stuff regularly into the classroom, but the teacher is able to support their curriculum needs through the project collection. They offer a range of advisory services as well. They can be recommending areas that need restocking, giving book talks to pupils, parents, governors, teaching information literacy, giving ICT support. You name it, really.

For those schools without library staff, a visit from a knowledgeable SLS librarian can help to inspire children to read for pleasure. ‘When a librarian has gone into a school and is enthused about it and talked about their favourite books, you can see very clearly how the take-up in that library goes up just from that passion and enthusiasm,’ says Jones. ‘That’s what school librarians ought to be doing. There are some great teachers and library co-ordinators, but they have a full teaching load and keeping the library going as well is difficult.’

Since funding was devolved to individual schools in 2000, School Libraries Services, along with school libraries, have had to compete for their share of the school budget. Unsurprisingly, SLSs are closing down, resulting in the loss of a resource that few schools could provide on their own. ‘I know secondaries in this area who say they buy their own books in,’ says Tarter. ‘I think it is unbelievably shortsighted. There is no way a single school can provide the depth in a topic that an SLS can. And many are not using the money to buy in books. It’s just getting swallowed up in the general budget.’ Just 65% of pupils were served by SLSs in 2004-05, a fall of 7% in one year.

The American-born Tarter has an MA in information science. She undertook postgraduate study in the UK and has an understanding of the British curriculum, yet, as a librarian in this country, is paid on the same scale as an administrative assistant. ‘There’s no statutory requirement for us. There’s no nationally negotiated pay for us. It is very hard to get qualified librarians to go into school librarianship when they can go into industry. It hasn’t developed the way it has in the States, where librarianship is a profession.’

While most secondary schools have dedicated library staff at least on a part-time basis, this is not the case in primary schools, where the burden of looking after the library, if there is one, usually falls on teachers or teaching assistants, who already have a full work load. ‘Teachers have not necessarily seen the importance of library provision, nor do they always have the involvement with children’s literature,’ points out Jonathan Douglas. To help surmount this difficulty, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in conjunction with the Arts Council devised Literature Matters, a two-year national scheme with regional variations, designed to increase the knowledge and appreciation of children’s literature among trainee teachers. Thus far the indications are that the scheme has been a success. ‘We can detect signs of change in terms of attitudes towards books and libraries, and the signs are that they are using libraries and literature more creatively in classroom practices,’ says Douglas, formerly Head of Learning and Access at the MLA. ‘We’re trying to catch teachers while they’re being formed and influence them young. If we get a teacher early we’ve got them for life.’

If the impact of Literature Matters nationally will take some time to filter through and assess, a 2006 Ofsted report on models of good practice in school library provision could yield results more quickly. According to Philip Jarrett, Subject Adviser for English at Ofsted, one of the reasons he decided to focus on libraries was that he noticed that in some areas little had improved in a decade. ‘Many of the things we’d been hoping to happen hadn’t happened,’ he explains.

The report clearly expresses the belief that the library should play a central role in the life of the school, and acknowledges that a supportive headteacher is key to the library’s success. ‘The argument of the report is that libraries make a difference to people’s learning, so that would be the argument I’d want to use for headteachers,’ says Jarrett. ‘It’s all very well having extensive literacy policies, but if you have a library that’s not functioning it doesn’t seem logical or coherent. We have to locate it within those programmes that all primary schools have for improving literacy.’

Unsurprisingly, the Ofsted report was met with a chorus of approval from those concerned about raising the status of books in schools. According to Anne-Marie Tarter, ‘Ofsted has helped by identifying to the education community just what a good school library can do. What they’re trying to do is build up a case that isn’t anecdotal that says if you don’t have a library your students will suffer.’ Sue Jones agrees. ’Those focused inspections were really helpful because it has shunted it up the agenda. The report is out there, people are aware of it and reading it. We need to capitalise on that. I think we all feel that we have a remit to pick up the baton and not let it drop.’

Sue Hackman, Chief Adviser on School Standards at the DfES, read the report with interest. ‘It absolutely is important to have libraries in primary schools,’ she says. Hackman agrees with the Ofsted report’s finding that the commitment of a teacher or headteacher to the library is key to its success and more important than the location of the library within the school. ‘I think it’s about how you bring the children to the books,’ she says. But given that teachers already have a full workload and the government seemingly has no intention of increasing the status of librarians or making school libraries statutory, bringing the children to the books can be quite a challenge.

‘The truth is that libraries do need to refresh their stock quite regularly, so it’s an ongoing cost,’ Hackman cautions. But what isn’t? Let’s not forget the price of that lightbulb. Nevertheless, as the Ofsted report shows, some primary schools have managed to create a thriving reading community despite the difficulties of balancing tight budgets and competing priorities.

In 1999, Basic Skills Agency head Sir Claus Moser revealed in a report that 20% of the adult population of the UK is functionally illiterate. Clearly something needs to be done to ensure such a statistic is not repeated in the next generation. And there does seem to be growing acknowledgement by the government that the process of learning, rather than sparking the student’s imagination, has been stifling it.

The Bookstart scheme, which is all about reading for pleasure, has already been extended to 18-month-olds and three-year-olds through increased government funding, while every child entering primary and secondary school is to receive a free book through the Booktime and Booked Up programmes.

Further, Education Secretary Alan Johnson recently unveiled the Boys into Books scheme, which will allow secondary schools to choose 20 free books with particular appeal for boys. While a welcome gift, it is nevertheless a token gesture, particularly bearing in mind that CILIP recommends that each school buys 17 books per head each year and that the cost to the government will only be around £100 per school.

Perhaps more important than the books themselves is the simple message that this initiative will convey to headteachers: children should be able to access books for pleasure in their school library.

So why not go further? Why not equip all school libraries with an adequate number of books and a qualified member of staff? Libraries are statutory in prisons. Why aren’t they in schools?

Children of all ages need school libraries, and librarians, who will help them to discover the books they will treasure for years to come. Books allow children to experience the magic of words well used and to acquire the power that comes with being able to use them effectively. Enable a child to love reading and everything else will follow.