The first session was by Kathryn Russell, Literacy Development Officer ‘Literacy across learning: working in partnership’. Kathryn tasked the groups / tables with the following:

Literacy across Learning: working in partnership

1. Please give an example of successful partnership working between teacher(s) and librarian(s). What factors were key to success?
2. Barrier / constraint to effective partnership: Suggested solution
3. Looking to the future  … how would you like to see the working relationships between teachers and librarians evelove?

There was much lively discussion with ‘what worked’ going in a box in the shape of a book and ‘what didn’t work’ going in a small wasterpaper bin.  Sue Cromar, Information Literacy Librarian, ALIS who organised the event and is writing a guide to partnership working collected all the information. The guide should be available in August / September this year.

Next up was Alison Bruce, Information Services Librarian, ALIS  - online resources for pupils and teachers. Alison demonstrated Credo Reference using a Science Experience and Outcome relating to the lungs. The retrieved resources demonstrated had pictures and texts plus source citation. The resources could also be shown as a Concept Map (Mind Map, Spider Diagram) with items linked to the references. The map could be simplified or expanded and the main topic could be changed. It was very impressive.

After tea / coffee break I did a presentation and workshop on Integrating Information and Critical Literacy across the curriculum . The workshop centered on each group / table unpacking a Curriculum for Excellence Experience and Outcome.

Librarians, teachers and Literacy Officer unpacking a CfE Experience and Outcome

  Participants in mixed groups:

• choose a Curriculum for Excellence Learning Experience and Outcome – Science or Health and Well Being
• unpack it using CfE template  created by Edinburgh Science QIO and used by Holy Rood High School, Edinburgh (link to  case study and template)  – unpacking is effectively a mapping exercise which allows the opportunities within the learning outcome to be explored.
• link to Literacy across learning experiences and outcomes  specifically ‘information and critical literacy’ activities
• identify relevant ‘information and critical literacy’ resources.

The workshop went well and it was interesting to hear the discussions and see librarians and teachers working in partnership to unpack their chosen experience and outcome. One school librarian was keen to replicate the exercise in her school as part of an in-service day.

After lunch there was a carousel exercise were groups (different groups from the morning) started at one table to hear about information literacy activities created and or used by Aberdeenshire schools:

Joint Geography Library Webquest

Table 1: Evaluating online resources – using Learning and Teaching Scotland’s online Information Literacy material

Table 2: Note-making and mind-mapping – RISK (Research and Investigation Skills) developed at Meldrum Academy by the Netwwork Librarian and teaching staff. A CD of the programme and material was included in the event pack of information given to everyone.

 Table 3: Webquests – joint working between Geography Principle Teacher and school librarian  

Table 4: Online resources – more in depth look at Credo Reference

Read it! Write it! Reference it!

Finding and using information: Early Level

I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices to learn new things. LIT 0.04a 

The children aged 5 years old listened to a chapter (chapter 4 I think) from a book about an owl finding out about night and darkness.

The book - The owl who was affraid of the dark

They had to listened for a specific piece of information which they then had to remember. Questions were asked to ensure that they had heard and remembered it. Later on in the day they were each given a worksheet and had to draw a picture to represent what the chapter was all about. The teacher then went round each of them and asked them to complete a sentence with information they had heard. Some repeated the information exactly others put it into their own words. Whatever the child said the teacher transcribed it onto their worksheet.

Other examples of activities included:

• selecting books in groups to find information about a particular night animal that the group had chosen i.e. a fox, badger, bat.

With the help of the teacher reading the text the children decided on the 4 most important facts about the animal. Later each group told the rest of the class what they had found.

• art of the week where they had to look at a picture of a piece of art Rodin’s Thinker and say what they thought it was about. It was amazing to see then looking at it, thinking about it and then giving their thoughts.

I could go on but will end there. My thanks to Mrs Lisa Bonar and her class at St Margaret’s School in Edinburgh for allowing me into their world. Discussions regrading the sort of things that would be useful to teachers regarding their own information literacy was also covered. It has certainly helped my thinking for the work ahead of me and I look forward to using this knowledge along with other experiences of Primary 2 and 3 to come in the new year.

This is my last blog of the year so Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

The survey suggests that the school librarians are tending to concentrate primarily on the Learning Experiences and Outcomes and not the Principle Papers which are said to be “essential reading for staff” and “a range of practitioners” including themselves as the following quote demonstrates.

It is expected that the literacy experiences and outcomes and this accompanying paper [principles and practice], will be read by a range of practitioners, including those who work in school library resource centres, who make an enormous contribution to the literacy skills of children and young people. 

33 respondents (75%) indicated that they had identified ways in which information literacy can be used to achieve or assist achievement of the experiences and outcomes.

26 respondents (53%) replied that they are or have been involved in any piloting activities, created any new activities or updated existing activities based upon the experiences and outcomes.

28 responses were generated to the question of  ‘How can school librarians optimise their efforts to support information literacy and the Curriculum for excellence Experiences and Outcomes locally and nationally?’  The main points which were frequently repeated were: 

• becoming involved in school activities through school committees such as literacy teams,
• getting the support of the head teacher,
• demonstrating an understanding of the aims of CfE,
• supporting cross curricular activities, 
• developing links with primary schools,
• being involved in all discussions and training and in-service opportunities,
• liaising closely with subject departments,
• working with other school library colleagues,
• working with teachers to standardise terminology, 
• promoting a whole school approach
• involving Learning and Teaching Scotland.  

The full results and findings are to be written up for publication including articles for

The School Librarian - The Curriculum for Excellence: knowledge, engagement and contribution by Scottish school librarians, Chrisitne Irving to be published in 2010.

Aslib Proceedings - The Scottish Information Literacy Project and school libraries, John Crawford and Christine Irving to be published in 2010.

Other publications being looked at are education publications.

It sets the context:

To meet the aspirations of Curriculum for Excellence, there will need to be changes in the way people think about curriculum, shifting the focus from a view of curriculum content as either ‘academic’ or ‘vocational’, towards curriculum as encompassing the whole range of knowledge, skills and attributes that contribute to the four capacities.

As we move forward, we need to build on and strengthen the development of skills across the curriculum. The focus will need to shift from the route to learning, and the settings where learning takes place, to the outcomes of learning, and the skills that young people need for their learning, life and work. (p4)

It sets the roles and responsibilities                                                               

All children and young people are entitled to opportunities to develop skills across the curriculum wherever and whenever they are learning. These skills are relevant from early years right through to the senior phase of learning and beyond, and into lifelong learning. All educators should therefore contribute to the development of these skills. (p.6)

It outlines who is involved in partnership working and their role:

Working with each other, and with other partners such as parents, employers, public bodies and voluntary organisations, can help schools and other learning providers to make the most of their contribution and recognise their part in promoting lifelong learning. In implementing the Experiences and Outcomes and planning for the senior phase of learning all partners, including learners themselves, will need to review the way they plan, reflect on and evaluate the development of skills for learning, life and work. (p.8)

On page 11 is a section titled Thinking skills across learning which to me looked very much like information literacy: 

It is important that all learners are given appropriate opportunities to develop their thinking skills. These skills can be developed across a range of contexts including through more practical or applied learning opportunities:

• Remembering involves such activities as recall, recognition or locating information
• Understanding might involve activities such as describing, explaining, summarising and translating
• Applying requires the learner to use or apply their knowledge and understanding in different contexts
• Analysing requires learners to break down information into component parts and search for relationships
• Evaluating involves making an informed judgement about something, for example an issue or method. Activities such as comparing, appraising, prioritising, rating or selecting, could involve learners in evaluating
• Creating happens when learners are required to generate new ideas and products through activities such as designing, creative writing, planning, reconstructing, inventing, formulating, producing and composing

Reflective questions on page 12:

• What range of learning activities could you use more effectively to help to develop young people’s higher order thinking skills?
• What kinds of questioning by both staff and learners might help to develop thinking skills?

 My answer to that would be – information literacy skills and school librarians / learning resource co-ordinators have the learning activities and questions / answers you are looking for.

Page 21 refers to placing learning within a practical context which the project has always found to be essential. In the context of early years there is reference to active learning which I heard a lot of at the early years sessions I attended at the Scottish Learning Festival.

Active learning is learning which engages and challenges children’s thinking using real and imaginary situations. It takes full advantage of the opportunities for learning presented by:

• spontaneous play
• planned, purposeful play
• investigating and exploring
• events and life experiences
• focused learning and teaching

Building the Curriculum 2 – Active Learning in the Early Years, provides further guidance on the use of active learning to support children’s development of the four capacities.

Active learning should continue beyond the early years.

 On page 27 it provides next steps for different groups / categories to consider  - Pre-school and teaching staff; Pre-school, school and college curriculum leaders; Local authority staff; Colleges, universities, employers and others who recruit young people; Local delivery partners (Skills Development Scotland, voluntary organisations, associated schools groups, private training providers and Learning Communities etc); Parent Councils; National Agencies and bodies (Skills Development Scotland, SQA, SCQF, Sector Skills Councils, employer bodies); The Scottish Government.

Under Pre-school, school and college curriculum leaders one of the points is -

How to develop and nurture a shared understanding and common language between partners.

I think this is important not just for this group of partners but the wider partners listed above.

Finally the document has some exemplification to support the development and delivery of skills through the CfE and it is worthwhile having a look at these. It has given me an idea of how we show the development of information literacy skills / critical literacy / thinking skills to CfE experiences and outcomes that are information literacy skills or information literacy related activities.  

The new Building the Curriculum 4: skills for learning, life and work  policy guidance is now available online.

The publication is part of a series of Building the Curriculum papers and is intended to further support planning, design and delivery of the curriculum in pre-school centres, schools and colleges. It sets out skills for learning, life and work in Curriculum for Excellence and shows how they are embedded in the experiences and outcomes and the senior phase.

I’m just back from a week’s holiday so haven’t had a chance to read it yet plus I’ve still to read the Early Years Framework. from the size of my reading pile I’ll need a week or two off just to catch up / get on top of it.

Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop said:

Not only will this site be an outstanding resource for pupils and teachers integrated to the new Curriculum for Excellence, it will also help inform all Scots – both at home and abroad – and everyone who shares an interest in learning about our country.

Developed by LTS and the Heritage Education Forum the online resource is said to explore “more than 5,000 years of Scottish history”.

Scotland’s History Online covers a range of subjects, from prehistoric through to 21st Century Scotland. With more than 200 topics that include links to over 1,000 other online sources and a wide range of interactive supporting materials.

The resource is structured by time periods:

• Early People (Prehistoric)
• Caledonians, Picts, Britons and Romans (Ancient)
• Wars of Independence (Medieval)
• Medieval life (Medieval)
• Renaissance, Mary Queen of Scots and the Reformation (Early Modern)
• Union of the Crowns to Union of Parliaments (Early Modern)
• Jacobites, the Clearances and Enlightenment (Early Modern)
• Making of Industrial and urban Scotland (Modern)
• Scotland in the 20th and 21st centuries (Modern)

I have had a quick look and it looks like a great resource with some amazing images.

 Question to Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education in the Scottish Government

My question to the minister is:

 The important skills of critical literacy / information literacy has been highlighted within the Curriculum for Excellence: Literacy across learning (finding and using information, understanding, analysing and evaluating) levels Early to Fourth. Does the minister agree that  information literacy  skills are essential in  independent learning at all educational levels, career choice and long term management, employability training, workplace decision making and lifelong learning and what strategic initiatives does she think the Scottish Government can engage in to promote it?

Answer from the minister

Thank you for submitting a question, please see below the response from the Education Secretary,

 The Scottish Government is determined to help our children and young people develop the literacy skills they will need to thrive in the 21st century. Skills in literacy unlock access to the wider curriculum, increase opportunities for the individual in all aspects of life and lay the foundations for lifelong learning and work. Curriculum for Excellence, the Scottish Government’s major programme of reform for the education sector, emphasises the importance of literacy skills and makes clear that all teachers have responsibility to promote their development.

The Curriculum for Excellence principles and practice paper for literacy sets out the outcomes we want our young people to achieve as they progress through their education.  Young people will need to know about the fundamentals of reading and writing but also how these skills can be applied critically, across different media, to analyse and evaluate information and to work out what trust they may place in it and identify when and how people are aiming to persuade or influence them.

As our children and young people progress through learning they should develop increasing independence in applying these skills, and the ability to use them across a widening range of contexts in both learning and life. Glow, the world’s first national schools Intranet, provides learners with  a range of tools and rich learning materials which can be accessed at any time and anywhere there is an internet connection, offering a safe, accessible online environment which supports independent learning.

builds on the organisation’s strong track record in delivering significant education reform, including its key role in Curriculum for Excellence and the implementation of Glow in all 32 local authorities.

core remit is:-

• Curriculum – to keep the curriculum 3 – 18 under review and provide advice and support, including quality assured resources, on the curriculum 3 – 18 to Ministers and the education system;
• Assessment – to provide advice and support to Ministers and the education system on assessment to support learning, with support from SQA as appropriate, and to work with SQA to ensure the availability of quality assured resources to support assessment;
• Glow and ICT in schools – to provide advice and support to Ministers and the education system on the use of ICT to support education, to establish and maintain technology standards for education, to ensure practitioners have easy online access to advice and support, including digital resources and to manage the provision of the national ICT infrastructure to support education, currently Glow, the LTS Online Service and the local authority Interconnect.

There are a number of other areas that LTS may work with other partners, perhaps leading on certain elements, to ensure effective provision, including research and intelligence gathering, professional development and the sharing of good practice. 

The project has worked with LTS on a number of information literacy related projects and it is good to see that LTS will continue to work with partners on “research and intelligence gathering, professional development and the sharing of good practice.” The current project we are working with them on is very much based in these areas linked to the Curriculum for Excellence - ‘Real and Relevant – Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner’ (Early and First Level)

According to the document:

The main differences from the existing assessment arrangements are that:

• Assessment practices will follow and support the new curriculum.  This will promote higher quality learning and teaching and give more autonomy and professional responsibility to teachers.
• Standards and expectations will be defined in a way that reflects the principles of Curriculum for Excellence.  This will support greater breadth and depth of learning and a greater focus on skills development including higher order skills.
• A national system of quality assurance and moderation for 3 – 18 will be developed to support teachers in achieving greater consistency and confidence in their professional judgements.
• A National Assessment Resource will help teachers to achieve greater consistency and understanding in their professional judgements.  There will also be a major focus on CPD to help teachers develop the skills required.

The document also contains information about the National Literacy qualifications being developed at

SCQF levels 3, 4, or 5. They will be available from S3 onwards and build on development of literacy and numeracy skills from earlier stages. Most young people will be presented for these qualifications before they leave school. The qualifications will be awarded on the basis of a portfolio of a learner’s work collected across a number of curriculum areas and  a range of contexts of learning, life and work and will involve external marking by SQA. The qualifications will be flexible to meet the needs of all learners including adult learners in colleges and other settings.

Something to look out for and hopefully influence.

According to the Assessment for Curriculum for Excellence website where there is a link to the Strategic Vision

Later this year, the Scottish Government will publish a Framework for Assessment as part of the Building the Curriculum series which will provide guidance and support to ensure that arrangements for assessment, at all levels of the educational community, support the values, purposes and principles of Curriculum for Excellence and build on the Assessment is for Learning programme.  The Scottish Survey of Achievement will also be redesigned to provide more information about young people’s literacy and numeracy skills.

The website also has a link to an Assessment strategy questions and answers PDF which contains 55 questions and answers. Including information that that they are “expecting schools and local authorities to develop their thinking about how they will work with the new standards and expectations over the course of this year” and that the “expectation is that from August 2010 assessment will be elated to the standards and expectations within the assesment framework”.

The Strategic vision document says that

The Framework for Assessment from 3 to 18 aims to create: 

• a more effective assessment system which supports greater breadth and depth of learning and a greater focus on skills development
• through collaborative working, a better-connected assessment system with better links between pre-school, primary and secondary schools, colleges and other settings to promote smooth transitions in learning 
• better understanding of effective assessment practice and sharing of standards and expectations as well as more consistent assessment
• more autonomy and professional responsibility for teachers.

to  identify exemplars of good practice / case studies within the cross curricular area of information literacy for dissemination through the LTS (Learning and Teaching Scotland) website which offers an important mechanism to keep education authority and school staff informed and supported.

Thanks to the above parties, LTS Curriculum for Excellence Literacy and English Team and the school librarians involved the case studies are now live and can be viewed on the LTS Information Literacy Website under sharing practice  - two more case studies are still to be finalised by LTS. Hopefully more case studies will be added in the future. 

The addition of these sharing practice case studies / exemplars of good practice linked to the Curriculum for Excellence four capacities (to enable each child or young person to be a successful learner, a confident individual, a responsible citizen and an effective contributor) will add value to the LTS resources:

• facilitating access to practitioners’ good practices and classroom resources within this important cross curricular area
• demonstrating how specific information literacy competencies can be applied in practice
• identifying exemplars linked to different levels within the curriculum, subjects and resources.

This is an important development with the inclusion of information literacy as part of the Curriculum for Excellence Literacy and English experiences and outcomes specifically

• finding and using information in the listening and talking, and reading sections
• understanding, analysing and evaluating in listening and talking, and reading sections “to encourage progression in understanding of texts, developing not only literal understanding but also the higher order skills”
• organising and using information in the writing section

For more details see Curriculum for Excellence: Literacy and English experiences and outcomes also the accompanying  – principles and practice paper / document.