Transcript

NICK:

Using the library development plan that you produced at the start, along with the school's aims and objectives, can really help you to decide on your priorities. How can you create impact for your school community? How much time are you going to devote to doing this? And how are you going to record it?

Although personal relationships in school are important, you must be mindful that you need to make sure you engage with key personnel and staff in school who can help advocate for the library and for the support that it provides for the school community. So you need to be visible. You need to get involved with parents' evenings and open days, and also things like teacher training days, where you could deliver a session raising awareness of the library, as well as taking part in staff meetings, committees, and things like the school council.

So visibility is key. But as librarians, we also need to make sure that we evidence our own impact by collecting data, and through raising awareness of the initiatives and events that the library has put on. You could do this through annual reports to governors and senior leadership, by sending a newsletter to parents and students, or via social media.

Again, it's important here that you can show that what the library is doing links with the school's own goals and that you can explain how what you are doing is achieving this. Sometimes it can seem hard to have to advocate for what you do. But if you can show evidence of impact, then you're more likely to get the support of senior leaders, and are more likely to be able to bid for more funding, or get support for initiatives that you really want to run. So it's really worth it in the end.