The Laureate

Ursula Dubosarsky is the Australian Children’s Laureate for 2020–2021. Ursula was born in Sydney and has wanted to be a writer from the age of six. She is now the author of over 60 books for children and young adults. She has won many national prizes, including the NSW, Victorian, South Australian and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award, and has been nominated for the international Hans Christian Anderson and Astrid Lindgren awards for children’s literature. Her books have been published widely across the world and translated into fourteen different languages.

After leaving school Ursula studied classical languages and English literature at Sydney University and then travelled overseas. She married in London, returned to Sydney and had three children. She pursued her writing career while working in various jobs, including some years at the NSW Department of Education’s School Magazine. She completed a PhD from Macquarie University in children’s literature at this time.

Her award-winning work includes picture books, such as The Terrible Plop; novels for older children, including The Blue Cat; and the non-fiction ‘Word Spy’ books about the English language. Three of her works have been adapted for theatre, and her book Too Many Elephants in This House was chosen for National Simultaneous Story-time. Ursula is a frequent visitor in libraries, schools and festivals around the world, talking about books and reading, and teaching children and adults the art of creative writing. She is currently a member of the Library Council of the State Library of NSW.

To explore more about our Professional Learning Summit or to register, please visit The Laureate and the Literacy Leader 

The Years in Review

Want to understand how SLANSW first formed to support Teacher Librarians? Then log into your member portal to read the latest blog post!

In this post, Bill Sommerville reflects on foundational moments in the history of NSW teacher librarianship and the School Library Association of New South Wales. To read the full blog post, click here and login to your Member Portal.

The Literacy Leader

Karen Yager is the Deputy Head, Student and Teaching Excellence K-12, at Knox Grammar School, Sydney, President and Life Member of English Teachers Association NSW and Vice President of the Professional Teachers’ Council NSW (PTC). Karen was awarded the first International Teaching Fellowship by the Singapore Ministry of Education in 2011 and has been invited to present papers at numerous national and international conferences. She was awarded the NSW Professional Teachers’ Council Award in 2009 and the Australian Professional Teachers Association Award in 2014 for her contribution to the teaching profession. In 2003, she was awarded the NSW Premier's Literary Scholarship to research how to connect students with Shakespeare. In 2016, she was awarded the NSW State Library Fellowship.

Karen is the 2020 recipient of the Reading Australia Fellowship for Teachers of English and Literacy. The fellowship supports a leading English and/or literacy teacher to undertake a career-enhancing research project that will benefit the successful Fellow as well as the education sector. Karen is currently undertaking her PhD with a focus on how an effective professional learning model can enable teachers to foster global competency and academic excellence in their students.

As a member of the School Library Coalition, SLANSW is one of the leading organisations that supports and funds the national Students Need School Libraries Campaign. At times we call upon our members to proactively engage with SNSL initiatives, and this is one of those times!

Last term, Holly Godfree, SNSLs Campaign Leader called for representatives from each state and territory to take on the role of Petition Coordinators. Gina Krohn, a primary TL who works in two public schools volunteered to take on the NSW coordination effort to lobby the NSW Government to provide greater support for school libraries in the NSW public school system. Please note that the NSW petition is actually an ePetition which requires NSW residents to ‘sign’ this partition by going online and submitting a simple form.

The title of the ePetition for NSW is ‘Students need school libraries: for improved academic outcomes, access to a qualified teacher librarian and a well-resourced library is a must’.

Why support such a petition?

Petitions allow members of the public to directly place their issues before the NSW Parliament. A petition helps raise awareness of an issue within our community and lets Members of Parliament know what action the community wants the NSW Parliament to take to address the issue. The Students Need School Libraries ePetition will be presented at the Legislative Assembly in early 2021 and SLANSW is calling on our members to try to spread the word about this ePetition far and wide into communities across NSW.

What is the focus of this petition?

This ePetition is targeted at citizens of New South Wales to help bring to the attention of the NSW Legislative Assembly the pressing issue that not all NSW public school students have access to a qualified teacher librarian and well-resourced library. As SLANSW members, we know there is significant evidence from Australia and internationally that demonstrates that students with access to qualified teacher librarians can achieve better academic outcomes. While previous advocacy initiatives have not resulted in great gains we desperately need as a profession, this ePetition could potentially become the initiative that provides us with that leverage.

Politically, what is most significant for us in NSW is the fact that the Legislative Council unanimously supported David Shoebridge (MLC)’s motion on the 25^th of February 2020, that all NSW public school students have access to a qualified teacher librarian in a quality school library.

While all petitions signed by 500 or more persons requires Ministers to lodge, with the Clerk, a response to a petition (which is reported in the House and published in the Votes and Proceedings and Hansard), an ePetition with 20,000 signatures or more actually results in the issues raised in the petition being scheduled for debate in the NSW Parliament House. Ultimately, we would like to see this happen!

This ePetition asks the NSW Legislative Assembly to:

1.  Acknowledge the evidence and support the appointment of qualified teacher librarians and support staff. 

2.  Ensure that NSW public schools use their allocated departmental funding to fill the specialist teacher librarian role.

3. Strengthen and value teacher librarians by ensuring they are used in the capacity for which they were employed, allowing their expertise to benefit NSW public school students.

Please take the time to ‘sign’ this online petition now at Students need school libraries ePetition, and encourage as many of your family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues who live in NSW to go online and sign it too!

The closing date for signing this ePetition is the 22^nd of January, 2021.          

As of the 1^st of December 2020, we have had 940 people sign this petition.

To reach the 20,000 signature target we need SLANSW members to disseminate this link  Students need school libraries ePetition to as many NSW residents as possible within the next few weeks.

An easy way of doing this is to add the link to the ePetition to your email signature. Just copy and paste the details (provided below), and share via your social networks on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Please take action now!

Dr Lyn Hay | Vice President – Operations

__________________________________________________________________________

Help spread the word by adding this to your email signature:

Calling all NSW residents – have you signed the Students Need School Libraries ePetition?
We need your help in supporting the future of school libraries in all NSW public schools.
Please sign this ePetitionand encourage all your family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues who live in NSW to sign it too!

Help spread the word by adding this to your email signature:

Calling all NSW residents – have you signed the Students Need School Libraries ePetition?

We need your help in supporting the future of school libraries in all NSW public schools.
Please sign this ePetition and encourage all your family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues who live in NSW to sign it too!

The closing date for this ePetition is 22/01/2021.

In light of unfolding changes to teacher accreditation priorities, suggested descriptors have been added to each Online Meet-up held in 2020.

This is provided as a service to members to assist them with logging TIPD hours via eTams. Current advice indicates this needs to be completed by 5 February 2021. Access the suggested descriptors via your SLANSW Member Portal login. Suggested descriptors can be found at the end of each Meet-up, as pictured below.

The SLANSW Management Committee welcomes and supports the “Recommended Minimum Information Services Staffing Levels” published by ALIA Schools. These revised standards aim to ensure that the recommendations for library staff are in keeping with the trend towards the overall improvement in teaching staff to student ratios. The expertise of school library staff to support teaching and learning, as well as to provide for recreational reading were also key to the rationale behind these revisions. To read the full document download the PDF.

Our TL stories

New on the blog is the first in our series; Our TL stories.  Lee FitzGerald has told her own TL story to get things underway.   We are hoping that in the telling  of our TL experiences, there will be many common threads and shared understandings about the evolution, challenges and rewards of our role. 

To read the full blog post by Lee FitzGerald, click here and login to your Member Portal.

SLANSW Online Meet-up 17 November 2020 - Presented by Lizzy Martin and Gabby Cundy

What are your students' favourite books of 2020? The goal of this Online Meet-up is to provide members with a selection of the best books of the year, ranging from picture books right through to young adult fiction. Special mention will be given to graphic novels and comics. Presenters will also take you through a range of ways in which they promote books within a primary school library context. Time will be given at the end of the meet-up for attendees to share their best books of 2020. 

To explore more about our online meetup or to register, please visit:  https://www.slansw.net.au/event-4033341

SLANSW in collaboration with the School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) and Blue Shield Australia offer members an Online Meet-up stemming from the impact of last Summer's bush fire season, which was compounded by floods. With the added issue of COVID-19 to deal with, we are aiming to be better prepared for this years’ season, knowing that we will be facing compounding disasters.

The goal of this Online Meet-up on 27 October 2020, is to provide our members with practical strategies to deal with disasters, should their library be directly impacted in the future. Presenters will share their experiences, guide participants through creating a 'preparedness document' and look to strengthen support networks across the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) sectors. 

This Online Meet-up will comprise: 

• an introduction by Sue Hutley

• a personal experience by Susan Mapleson

• a presentation by Heather Brown

• resource sharing, including template documents for participants to continue to work on, post Meet-up.

https://www.slansw.net.au/event-3988403