Anne Harding Training

Picture book inset

2012-03-02T17:40:00.001Z

It was a treat earlier this week to deliver inset on using picture books in years 6 and 7, for an excellent cross-phase literacy project in the London Borough of Brent. (Lovely for me to visit my old stamping ground. I worked in Brent for many years prior to becoming a trainer.)

Picture books have so much to offer in key stages 2 and 3, but are often under-utilised. We talked about the great role they can play in fostering reading enjoyment, and effective methods to exploit them to develop children’s oracy, literacy, comprehension and thinking skills. Their value for EAL and SEN pupils was discussed, but also their importance for children of all abilities. We explored ways to support curriculum areas and cross-curricular learning through picture books, and ideas for using them to inspire writing, drama, art and lots of other creative activities.

I was delighted to be able to introduce people to some fabulous books that they had not seen before. Several delegates told me they were going to be ordering some of the titles as soon as they got into school the next day, and that they knew their students would love them. A big thank you to the great Willesden Bookshop and to Westminster Schools Library Service for all their support in suggesting titles and lending me books, and many thanks too to Barnet School Libraries Resources Service and Chris Brown, book review editor of the School Librarian for lots of helpful ideas.

For anyone interested, there is more about my picture book training on my website.

I took the photo of year 6 girls choosing picture books in the fabulous library in Martin Primary School in Barnet.

Open training courses

2012-02-28T21:50:00.002Z

Most of my training is designed for practitioners in specific local authorities or other organisations, but I have a few open courses coming up with places still available. (My March courses at Heath Books are now fully booked, with waiting lists.) Follow the links for details and booking information.

Working with looked-after children
The Network and Anne Harding Training - Woking - 26 March 2012

Supporting reading through the primary library
Heath Educational Books - Sutton - 24 May 2012

Making the most of your library
National Centre for Language and Literacy - Reading - 13 June 2012

Supporting children with special educational needs
Creating Capacity - London - 6 July 2012

I am also delivering a workshop on supporting children with special educational needs in school and public libraries on 9 June 2012 in Windsor as part of the Lighting the Future conference.

The photo is of a workshop at Bishop's Stortford College.

Book and reading events at the Imagine Festival

2012-02-22T12:59:00.001Z

What a great - and illuminating - time I had at the Imagine Festival. I’ve already blogged about the launch of the Young Minds report. There were two other events with a looked-after children theme, both excellent. 'Lyrical Letterboxes' was the brainchild of Letterbox Club. Jackie Kay and Roger McGough captivated everyone with accounts of the reading they loved as children, and with superbly participative renditions of their poems. Anne of Green Gables was Kay’s favourite book. She totally identified with Anne, who was adopted, like her, and was just as much of a chatterbox. She even named her son after Anne’s father. Kay also adored Greyfriars Bobby, about, as she put it, ‘the most loyal dog in history’. (This was one of my absolutely favourite reads too. I still have the copy my dad gave me.) McGough’s literary hero was Alf Tupper in the Rover comic. Despite having no home and no money for proper clothes or shoes, Alf ran for England and won. McGough’s childhood ambition, he told us, was to grow up to be a fictitious comic book character. This has to be the most interesting ambition I have ever encountered. Letterbox Club had a big bag of books, one for each Club member in the audience. A lovely touch.

'From Pip to Potter' on Sunday was a fascinating panel discussion organised by Letterbox Club and the Reader Organisation, which I am proud to be a group facilitator for. It was about literary characters with a care background - what a lot there are, not least Superman - and how they, and indeed reading itself, can inspire children in care. Lemn Sissay told us looked-after children (LAC) are celebrated in art, but are not, and should be, in real life. He and poet Caroline Bird spoke about their Superhero poetry workshops, which have provided LAC with new and important means of expression. We heard about the fantastic differences the Letterbox Club makes to the lives of children in care, and the excellent support the Reader project with LAC is giving, again through the medium of books. All these schemes give children and young people more ways to think about themselves and their situations, and also to understand other people better: books as mirrors or windows or both. The speakers talked about how helpful it is for looked-after children to discover through reading that they are not the only ones with problems. Michael Rosen’s Sad Book is amazing for this, as is Jacqueline Wilson’s Worry Website. Questions from the floor raised important points, including the reasons for LAC's often low reading levels and the need for training for carers, something very dear to my heart. An excellent event.

For anyone who is interested, you can find all my blog posts about looked-after children here, including several about Letterbox.

I was also lucky enough to attend the Red House Children’s Book Award ceremony on Saturday. Queen Elizabeth Hall was packed with hundreds of excited children. The very best thing about the award is that it is judged solely by children, and it was delightful that the winners were announced by children. The afternoon was a wonderful celebration of books and reading, with lots of brilliant authors, this year’s shortlisted ones, and previous title-holders like Michael Morpurgo and Malorie Blackman too. All were great. I especially enjoyed Mick Inkpen’s tale about one particular critical reaction to Blue Balloon, a book I love and use time and time again in activities with children. ‘It’s not your best, is it?’, said his seven year-old son. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness was the worthy overall award winner. I took the photo before the event, as children queued to add their suggestions for good reads to the reading tree set up in Hall foyer.

There are still lots of Festival events to come, though unfortunately my involvement is at an end.

Children in museums and galleries

2012-02-18T11:49:00.003Z

I have just caught up with a very interesting piece about children and culture that was on Woman’s Hour last Thursday. Jeanette Winterson, Rosie Millard and Jenni Murray talked about the value of taking children to museums and galleries, and ways to make visits interesting. All saw avoiding boredom as vital, hardly surprisingly. Rosie Millard has some lovely ways of making gallery trips with her four children playful. Crucially, they never stay very long, and they only look at a few artworks. They buy postcards and then hunt out the pictures, they play compare and contrast games, they use paintings as the basis for story-telling. (A picture of Charles II on his horse has led to lots of enjoyably gruesome discussions about his execution.) The Grayson Perry exhibition, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, on at the British Museum for just one more week, has been a big hit with children. Items in it like badges fascinate them, but it's the irreverence and humour of lots of the exhibits that especially appeals. Much food for thought for me in all this in relation to my family learning courses.

Millions of children have never been inside a gallery, museum or theatre. Winterson and Millard were both adamant about the importance of school visits to cultural organisations.

Thank you for the photo to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter, which runs fantastic family and school events.

I'm not like Tracy Beaker

2012-02-16T09:44:00.001Z

Monday saw the publication of an important report by Young Minds. Improving the health of looked after young people is full of information about looked-after young people’s perceptions about their care, support services and school, and about their feelings. The differences between how young people act and how they feel are stark. Outward displays of strength and confidence are often masks for inner fears, insecurity and stress. Around 60% of looked-after young people have some level of mental health problem.

The report contains valuable recommendations. In view of the course I am co-running next month on how arts and cultural organisations can support looked-after children and young people, I was especially interested in the recommendation that art, play, drama and music should be used as methods for communication and improving emotional well-being.

I attended the report's launch on Monday evening. 'I'm not like Tracy Beaker' combined a plea for society to take more care about looked-after young people with a celebration of their resilience and creativity. Speakers from Young Minds, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England and Flourish, a national programme to promote artwork by young people with experience of being in care, spoke passionately about the needs of looked-after young people, and about how creative activities can make them feel stronger and more in control of their lives. We heard about the powerful impact of involvement in poetry workshops and the annual Flourish exhibition. Poet Lemn Sissay, himself brought up in the care system, declared that looked-after young people are super-heroes, whom we should see not as victims, but in terms of their fantastic potential.

Bilingual early years library session

2012-02-13T12:42:00.000Z

I am currently preparing courses on early years library provision, and on rhyme times, and it's been lovely to visit some great under 5s activities to pick up extra ideas for good practice. As there will be a bilingual context for much of the training I'm planning, it was especially good to attend a library session for Polish families in Enfield on Friday.

It was a snowy morning, so I expected low turn-out, but such is the dedication the weekly sessions inspire that ten or so families came along (there can be up to twenty), one of them with a week-old baby. Babies and one, two and three year-olds were all actively engaged, as were mothers, an older sister and a grandparent. There were lots of things to do, several with a suitably snowy theme, like the story being enjoyed here, and picture-making. Polish music played softly in the background. The morning ended with a wonderful, very participative rhyme time, which everyone loved. Agnieszka Bartoszek, who led the session, used rhymes in both Polish and English, and I found it fascinating to observe all the children and adults switching backwards and forwards from one language to the other with no problem. The little girl in pink here, who is nine months old, adores books in both languages. She sat on a little push-along bike and devoured lots with total delight.

What I admire about sessions like this is that as well as being so enjoyable, they play a huge role in supporting children’s language skills, their emotional and social development, and their knowledge and understanding. The value to the whole family is enormous. The group enables Agi to spread the word about other things going on for under 5s locally, and to alert everyone to issues like the need to register for nursery provision at the appropriate time. Recently she arranged a visit from an oral health practitioner, who talked not only about tooth-brushing, but also about how to find a dentist.

Many thanks to Agi, to Josie Layzell, Enfield Bookstart Coordinator, who arranged my visit, and of course to all the lovely families I met.

Boys’ reading

2012-02-09T10:36:00.003Z

As my courses on boys’ reading are asked for as much or more than any others I give, I was interested to see that today’s Guardian has a list of ten books to boost boys' reading. It will hopefully be useful to children, and to parents, carers and teachers, though most of the books are well known, and it is short on teenage titles. A very interesting discussion thread has started up, with lots of extra suggestions. I do hope some children’s and school librarians will add their knowledge and expertise. (Great to see arts journalist Laura Barnett’s passionate defence of libraries and children’s librarians in there.)

It’s worth checking out the Guardian's other top ten children’s books lists too. There’s some interesting stuff in them.

For anyone in the UK looking for more ideas for boys’ reading, these blogs are very useful: Literature for Lads; The Book Zone (for Boys).

These are some American blogs: Boys Read; Getting Boys to Read; Guys Read.

This is a useful listing of articles of boys’ reading from the National Literacy Trust, and don’t forget P remier League Reading Stars. There is more on using sport to promote literacy here. The Reading Champions scheme has a good track record, though it isn't free.

Many thanks to Barbara Band for the picture of the Reading Game (scroll down the page to find it) in action in Emmbrook School library.

Quentin Blake - As large as life

2012-02-08T09:57:00.002Z

I blogged a few weeks ago about an exhibition of Quentin Blake's paintings for hospitals and other health organisations. It is now in London, at the Foundling Museum. I loved it. This is just one of his fabulous Planet Zog pictures for a children’s hospital. I also particularly liked his paintings of ancient circus artists, created with elderly mental health patients in mind. They are delightfully funny, heart-warming and sympathetic. His artwork for an eating disorder clinic is also full of empathy and humour. There is a reading corner decorated with wallpaper designed by Blake (as is the wonderful café). The day I visited lots of children and adults were busy there producing art and stories inspired by the exhibition. Some great looking family events accompany the exhibition. Anyone with an iPad can download a free app with more about Blake’s work.

The Foundling Museum is well worth exploring. It gives the history of the Foundling Hospital, the first home for abandoned children. Some of the stories are truly tragic. The museum does lots of impressive work with today’s looked-after children and young people.

Imagine Festival

2012-02-02T17:30:00.002Z

There’s a great festival of literature, music, comedy and performance for children at the Southbank Centre in London from 12-26 February.

Three events have a looked-after children theme, something very close to my heart, so I'm delighted to have tickets for all of them:

I’m not like Tracy Beaker on 13 February is a seminar on the experiences of children growing up in care, led by Young Minds.
On 17 February, in an event called Lyrical Letterboxes, given in association with the Letterbox Club, Roger McGough, Jackie Kay & Lemn Sissay will be talking about their literary heroes, and the books they'd like to come through their letterboxes.
From Pip to Potter, celebrating the place of children in care in literature on 19 February sounds fantastic. There’s a great panel of speakers, who will be led in discussion by Lemn Sissay.

Other book-related events that caught my eye are performances of The Incredible Book-Eating Boy and Private Peaceful, plus a celebration of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. And there are loads of authors appearing, among them Francesca Simon, Morris Gleitzman, Andy Stanton, Cressida Cowell, Jeremy Strong and Jacqueline Wilson.

Book reviews

2012-01-30T17:06:00.000Z

I’ve enjoyed reviewing books for children and young people - and the occasional professional publication - for School Librarian for quite a while. All my reviews are now on my website, including the books in the photo. I'm very pleased that I am now a reviewer for Armadillo Magazine too. I am currently reading Don’t Call Me Ishmael by Michael Gerard Bauer for them. If you haven’t come across it yet, it’s a clever and funny teenage novel set in a boys’ school. Bauer's handling of bullying is particularly good. I'll upload my review once it's been published.

Those of you with an interest in books for children and teenagers may also be like to see my blog posts on the subject.

Effective provision for teenagers in museums, libraries and other arts and cultural organisations

2012-01-26T09:11:00.008Z

There was a great Twitter discussion launched by Cultural Theme s this week about good teenage provision. Look for the tweets dating from 24 January, or check out the complete archive. The discussion focused on museums, but lots of the strategies that were shared are equally relevant and useful in libraries and other arts, cultural and heritage organisations. I give training courses on working effectively with teenagers in these sectors, and thoroughly endorse the ideas.

Incidentally, for anyone who does not know it, Kids in Museums is well worth keeping an eye on for tips on good practice with teenagers as well as children and families. Public and school library staff can find loads of information and case studies of good practice on Teen Librarian and YA Library UK.

I took the photo at a great Warhammer workshop run by Redbridge Library Service. It's a regular event which attracts lots of young people. One of the reasons for its success is of course everyone's active engagment, a vital key for good teenage provision. If you are interested, you can find all my blog posts about this and other issues concerning work with teenagers here.

Lost Childhood event

2012-01-21T13:25:00.000Z

I was very lucky to attend the Lost Childhood event at the Museum of Childhood on Thursday. After a fascinating guided tour of some of the museum’s exhibits, four young people with experience of the care system spoke movingly about their time in care, and the enormous challenges they faced, and in some cases are still facing.

One described being uprooted from her foster home at the age of ten after many happy years there because the family was of Caribbean origin, whereas her birth parents were African. She was moved to new foster carers found through a newspaper ad, whose care for her was terrible. Only after years of misery and school refusal were her problems resolved. Then at eighteen she was threatened with deportation, and had more battles to fight, as she did too when she tried to get into university, and her social worker would not fill in the paperwork. What a tribute to her guts and determination that she is now a graduate, though once again the threat of deportation hangs over her.

The others too gave powerful testimonies. One young woman told of being moved from a secure unit to a foster home where the only food on offer was bread and butter. Her time there was so bad, she ran away, back to the unit. Her next foster family was better, but always sent her into respite care whenever they went on holidays. At no time did she have a social worker who listened to her needs.

All the young people spoke of the help they had received from Voice, a charity with advocacy for looked-after children and young people at its heart. The picture shows Andrew Radford, the Chief Executive, who spoke passionately about the need to bridge the gaps in opportunity and attainment between children in care and their peers, and his anger at the disregard of many adults with responsibility for looked-after children to their needs and views. Young people in the care system face unfair battles, he told us.

I had lots of extremely absorbing discussions afterwards, with Andrew and others involved with Voice, and with other visitors.

ChildWise Monitor Survey

2012-01-19T08:30:00.004Z

Lots of useful information on children’s and young people’s use of technology in the latest ChildWise Monitor Survey. This is a good overview from the BBC.

I was particularly interested in the data on children’s and young people’s reading:

Reading still tops the list for last thing in bed at night (39%), but phone use is close, and listening to music or watching TV are not far behind.
eReaders are growing in popularity, especially among younger children and boys. 9% of 5-16s now have an eReader, highest among younger boys (14% of boys aged 5-10 years).
Only a minority of children read for pleasure every day (30% read books every day, 15% read magazines), but most read on occasion. More than one in four read books or magazines for an hour a day or more.
Two thirds of 9-16s read online: reviews, stories, news, blogs and books.

The large amount of time that children spend on their mobiles and using the internet (Facebook and YouTube by far the most popular sites) will come as little surprise to most, but the survey also tells us that despite many people's fears, their favourite means of communication is still face to face.

Reading for pleasure

2012-01-16T08:45:00.004Z

I could not resist sharing this photo of two teenagers enjoying a picture book together.

Encouraging reading for pleasure is the focus of lots of my training, and a good deal of my voluntary activity, so I was delighted to read this erudite and impassioned plea by Graham Maslen, headteacher of North Halifax Grammar School. It contains an extremely useful round-up of research on the subject.

It is heartening that the latest guidance for Ofsted inspectors on reading, writing and communication makes a number of references to the importance of reading for pleasure. I blogged a few months ago about the DfE website guidance on fostering reading enjoyment.

Michael Rosen's Reading Revolution website has some excellent ideas for creating a reading school. For some practical tips, take a look at his 20 point plan. It is well worth keeping an eye on Rosen's blog too.

Both school and public libraries of course play a huge role in fostering reading enjoyment. For anyone who has not seen it, this is a recent article of mine on the role of libraries in encouraging reading enjoyment among teenagers.

New reports about children and young people

2012-01-12T13:12:00.002Z

Lots of important new research has been published recently.

The Children’s Society launched the Good Childhood Report 2012 today (summary here). Shockingly, half a million children in the UK are unhappy with their lives. The Society identifies the components of well-being for children. These are some of the key findings:

Family is the most important component of most children's happiness.
It is not the structure, but the relationships within a family that children care about.
Stability is important. Changes in family structure and frequent changes of home significantly impact on children’s well-being.
Low well-being increases with age, doubling from age 10 to 15.
Children living in the poorest 20% of households have much lower well-being than average.
Children who feel they spend too little time with family and friends tend to have lower well-being.
Autonomy and choice are very important to children’s well-being.
At 15 56% of girls and 32% of boys are unhappy with their appearance.
School and education are key factors influencing well-being.
Children who have been bullied are significantly more likely to experience low well-being than those who have not.

We know that child poverty has major consequences for children’s well-being and prospects. Another useful and disturbing report published by End Child Poverty this month highlights the scale of child poverty in the UK, and provides maps and tables.

In the light of the fact that spending time with family is so important, it is depressing to read evidence from children's communication charity I CAN that work pressures are having a major effect on the amount of time parents talk to their children. In addition to the inevitable impact this has on children’s happiness, it is deeply worrying in terms of what it means for children’s speaking and understanding skills and their ability to learn.

The value of e-books and apps for children with special educational needs

2012-01-09T08:45:00.002Z

For anyone with an interest in promoting children’s reading and supporting children with special needs, I thoroughly recommend this blog by Alex Strick, Disability Consultant at Booktrust.

Important ideas on the value of e-books and apps for making reading accessible to children with learning difficulties and autism and those who are blind or partially sighted, and their scope for developing communication and other skills.

Prince's Trust Youth Index 2012

2012-01-05T09:04:00.002Z

Every year the Prince’s Trust produces an invaluable survey into the well-being of 16-25 year-olds. This year’s has just been published, and there are some disturbing findings.

The impact of lower educational attainment on mental health is deeply worrying. 47% of young people with fewer than five A*-C GCSEs often or always feel down or depressed, compared with 30% of those who are more qualified. They are three times more likely to lack confidence, and significantly more likely to believe they won't be able to achieve what they want in life. The survey also highlights a previously unidentified link between lower educational attainment and lack of routine during childhood (set bedtimes, regular mealtimes, consistency of housing). Those who lacked structure when growing up are markedly less happy than their peers.

There is a large discrepancy in how satisfied young people feel with their lives, depending on employment status. NEETs are less content with all areas of their lives than those in work, education or training. They are far more likely to feel down or depressed, and are more pessimistic about their family relationships and their friendships. Many are apprehensive about their future employment prospects, especially those who have been out of work for over a year. Youth unemployment is having an increasing impact on well-being.

The survey explores the aftermath of the riots. Young people in riot-affected areas are considerably less hopeful than their peers. Two-thirds feel the riots have had a negative effect on young people’s prospects in their areas.

Not everything in the report is gloomy. Overall confidence levels and happiness among young people have increased slightly in the last year. There are several inspiring case studies of young people who have turned their lives around as a result of Prince’s Trust initiatives.

Proposed changes to the English national curriculum

2012-01-03T10:59:00.005Z

I suspect that many people may not have spotted the publication of the proposed changes to the English national curriculum in the run up to Christmas. These are some of the significant proposals:

The national curriculum should set out only the essential knowledge (facts, concepts, principles and fundamental operations) that all children should acquire.
Key stage 2 should be split into a lower and upper KS2.
Key stage 3 should be reduced to two years, and key stage 4 expanded to three.
Oral language should be a key feature of the new curriculum.
Modern foreign languages, history, geography and design and technology should be compulsory subjects up to the age of 16.
The system of measuring progress by levels should be ended.

Implementation of the revised curriculum has been put back to autumn 2014. There will consultation between now and then.

Fostering

2011-12-22T10:09:00.000Z

Lots of media coverage of fostering this week after the Fostering Network highlighted the need for more foster carers. I found the item on Woman’s Hour particularly good. As well as Helen Clarke from the Fostering Network and Children's Minister Tim Loughton, the programme featured a young woman called Claire, who spent all her childhood and teens in foster care. Her testimony was powerful. With forty-two different placements in her early childhood, she felt keenly the absence of a loving home and family. School life was hard: she was always trying to hide her situation from everyone. When she was nine or ten a social worker told her that by the time she was in her teens she would be like every other foster child, on drugs and pregnant. Luckily, Claire was eventually placed with a wonderful foster family that provided all the understanding, support, stability and love she needed. She is now a great advocate for the fostering system.

The Fostering Network itself and all the other agencies involved in fostering have all seen a huge upsurge in enquiries this week as a result of the call for more carers, so hopefully some of the shortfall will be rectified. I am so impressed with foster carers. I have met lots over the years, principally because of the training I give for carers and others on looked-after children’s reading. I always come away from courses and meetings awe-struck by their dedication and care.

Visit to children's book group

2011-12-16T18:17:00.003Z

It was such a treat earlier this week to visit a thriving children’s book group in a Barnet library. I’m told attendance was lower than usual because it’s close to Christmas, but there were still lots of children having a great time. There was a good mix of boys and girls, and of ages, with children from Y2 to Y7. I loved meeting them and hearing what they like reading. This Y5 boy told me he likes books about science, books with facts, and stories as well, so he had chosen the perfect book. I really enjoyed our discussion about it. I was delighted that three looked-after children came to the group with their foster mother.

This week was a special event: The Book Group’s Got Talent. I felt very honoured to be one of the judges. There were some wonderful book reviews, and insightful pieces about favourite book characters. (I was so pleased to hear the BFG, a big favourite of mine, getting a great press, and it was lovely to listen to two very different sets of reasons for Horrid Henry’s popularity.) We were also treated to jokes and to excellent recorder playing and singing. My fellow judge, a children’s librarian from elsewhere in the borough, and I were very impressed by the children’s eloquence and presentation skills, so it was a surprise to find out later from parents and carers that some had overcome speech and confidence problems. In fact, it was clear that the group has had a very positive effect on many of the children, in all sorts of ways. Needless to say, everyone got prizes.

Many thanks to Nalayini, the lovely children's librarian who runs the group, and to all the children.

Panorama: The truth about adoption

2011-12-15T10:13:00.001Z

Last night’s Panorama programme about children who are waiting for adoption, was very powerful and deeply moving - and a huge indictment of the adoption system in England.

The six Coventry children featured have all waited a long time for adoptive families, many years in some cases. Although all are with wonderful foster parents, their situations are tragic. The processes of getting children adopted are shown to be not only extraordinarily lengthy but also traumatic and damaging for all concerned. There is a lot of harrowing pain on view. These children (and their birth parents) experience unimaginable loss, often repeatedly.

We are told that there are 65,000 children in care in this country. Seventy-five per cent of them are placed for adoption, but in only a tiny fraction of cases will this be successful. Though not for want of trying. The social workers on the programme come out as heroes, battling against an appalling system. The government has plans to overhaul adoption processes. Everyone who watches the programme will fervently hope they are successful, and soon.

This programme is required viewing for anyone with personal or professional concerns about looked-after children and adoption. It was extremely pertinent to me, because of my training on looked-after children and young people. The BBC has a very useful list of contacts for people affected in any way by the programme.

Booktrust targeted programmes

2011-12-09T14:48:00.002Z

I had a fascinating meeting this week with Marian Keen-Downs, Head of Targeted Programmes at Booktrust. It was great to hear all that is currently happening with Letterbox Club and Booktrust’s new targeted offers for selected schools, The Ant Club and Beyond Booked up. Both schemes start early next year, providing teachers’ packs with resources and lesson plans to promote communication, language and literacy skills, and reading for pleasure.

The Ant Club is aimed at pupils in Reception and Year 1. The resources sound wonderful. They will include rhyme, role play, fairy tale and poetry, all brought to life by Nick Sharratt. I love the idea of the scrapbook to help children ‘get carried away by words’.
Beyond Booked Up is aimed at Year 7 and 8 pupils. There will be lots of accessible resources, all designed to inspire interest in books and reading, including play scripts and a brand new anthology of short stories. This is going to be in magazine format, and Jacqueline Wilson and Anthony Horowitz are among the high-profile authors. The packs will be free for eligible schools, and will be available at cost to other schools in the future.

I blogged a few weeks ago about Letterbox Club's impact on looked-after children’s reading in Brent. The scheme is transforming LAC’s attitudes to reading and learning up and down the UK. In one Welsh authority, information about the local university was included in the Letterbox envelopes. Foster families asked for a visit, and seeing the place for themselves completely changed the children’s views about higher education. Interestingly, some of the most popular books for key stage 3 children have been an atlas and a dictionary.

Marian and I discussed ideas for workshops on reading for foster carers. Fingers crossed that we can get them off the ground.

Two great libraries

2011-12-05T19:07:00.001Z

With all the bad news about libraries at the moment, it was lovely to visit two fantastic ones today, first the exciting (and very busy) Whitechapel Idea Store in Tower Hamlets for a meeting to discuss training, then the stunning new Canada Water Library in Southwark. What amazing architecture! I was particularly keen to see the provision for children and young people. I arrived about 4.00, and the children’s library was packed out. The library only opened a week ago, but everyone looked totally at home. It was great to watch several family groups reading together, as well as lots of children choosing books and using the computers. There’s a good teenage area, with a huge selection of graphic novels, and space for working and for relaxing. The children’s area is at the back on this photo, mostly out of view, and the teenage area on the right.

Two great illustrators and exhibitions of their work

2011-12-02T17:41:00.011Z

What lovely news this week, that Quentin Blake has been awarded the Prince Philip Designers Prize. This BBC piece includes a brief video clip in which he talks about what the award means to him. There’s another interesting interview with him here, in which he discusses his artwork commissioned by a variety of hospitals to have a therapeutic effect on patients. An exhibition of over sixty of the pictures, including ones Blake created for a mental health ward, an eating disorder clinic, and a hospital for young people, is on till 11 December at Compton Verney and is moving to the Foundling Museum in January.

I was delighted to fit in a visit to a wonderful (free) exhibition of John Burningham’s work at the Fleming Collection in London. I’ve always loved his illustrations. Seeing the original artwork was an enormous treat. The colours and textures were a revelation. There were lots of pictures I had never seen too, not to mention the original model for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and some fascinating archive material. On until 22 December and thoroughly recommended!

Frank Cottrell Boyce at the Southbank Centre

2011-11-30T11:33:00.000Z

What a treat to attend this event last night. Cottrell Boyce spoke about the importance of reading in his life, but this was no dry academic discourse: a pupil at a boys school, reading was the only way he could find out about girls. (Quoting Raymond Chandler to a girl at a bus stop turned out not to be the best way to go about things.) Surely there can be no-one else in the world who can put their marriage down to the influence of the Moomins.

I love The Unforgotten Coat, which he wrote for the fabulous Reader Organisation, and it was great to hear about its inception. It is based on the true story of a young Mongolian girl, whose coat was left behind when she was taken away in the middle of the night and deported. Cottrell Boyce does not in any way downplay the tragedy of his protagonists’ plight in the book, but despite this, it’s packed with humour and warmth. He read out several wonderful passages. The Reader gave away 50,000 copies for the Our Read campaign, and it is on the shortlist for the Costa Children’s Book Award.

The children in the audience had loads of fantastic questions, and Cottrell Boyce’s responses were brilliant. On their advice, he is going to take up the offer of the NASA reading group, which read Cosmic and have invited him to go on the delightfully named vomit comet.

Meeting at UCS library

2011-11-29T09:57:00.002Z

I had a very interesting and useful meeting last week about next year’s joint School Library Association, Youth Libraries Group and School Libraries Group conference, Lighting the Future, and my potential contribution to it.

The meeting was in the library at University College School in Hampstead, and it was great to have a tour with Head of Library, Rebecca Hemming. When I arrived several sixth formers were draped very comfortably over these beanbags. They said the room was the most relaxing place in the school. There are plenty of spaces for purposeful study too.The library is on two floors and is very well stocked with printed and online resources. I was especially interested to see Rebecca's contributions on the school’s VLE. I loved the fact that her excellent collection of websites for the Romans included this Horrible Histories YouTube video about Roman toilets. Somehow I suspect that it’s the most popular link on the list.

Digital technology and under-fives

2011-11-25T10:01:00.000Z

Many people will already have seen this YouTube video of a very young child baffled by a magazine because it doesn’t work like an iPad. Here is a fascinating Guardian article reflecting on the impact of new forms of digital technology on under-fives. The intuitive nature of smartphone and tablet software makes it supremely easy for young children to operate. While there are some dangers to this, there is also huge potential for literacy, numeracy and other learning. However, if mobiles and tablets are just used by parents as distraction, that potential isn’t met. Lots of food for discusion on my early years courses and family learning training.

The photo is of an iPhone showing an app produced by digital publisher Winged Chariot: The Red Apple by Feridun Oral.

Children’s books with mixed-race characters

2011-11-24T11:03:00.002Z

I have just come across this excellent blog post about the importance of children’s books featuring mixed-race characters, and the paucity of published material, written by children’s author Malaika Rose Stanley. It is accompanied by an extremely useful booklist, divided into picture books, middle grade and young adult.

The blog is called An Awfully Big Blog Adventure, and it’s well worth checking out the other posts on it. They are all by children’s writers from the UK or Ireland.

Life in a young offenders institution

2011-11-22T10:05:00.000Z

Today’s Guardian carries a compelling article about the realities of life inside a young offender institution. In ‘No place like home’ Amelia Gentleman observes on three days she spent in Ashfield YOI. Important reading for anyone involved in any way with young offenders. It certainly added to the information and understanding I will be able to bring to future training courses on working with young offenders.

Over 40% of the Ashfield population have some form of learning difficulty or conduct disorder. A third have the literacy levels of seven to eleven year-olds. Many have low IQs. A third are on the mental health team’s books, with large numbers taking drugs for ADHD or depression, and lots with very high anxiety levels. A third of prisoners are looked-after children, previously in foster homes or children’s homes, and as many again are known to social services, making 63% of the population overall known to social services.

Plenty of classes are provided, but teachers struggle to engage those young people with no desire to learn or such poor abilities that they use bad behaviour to avoid looking silly to other class members. The transient nature of the population does not help.

About three quarters of young people sentenced to custody reoffend within a year of release, not least because of what they learn inside. One young man recounts the useful things other prisoners have taught him: how to sell drugs for profit, car theft, fighting techniques. Gentleman also discovers that some prisoners deliberately misbehave in the run up to release in the hope their sentences will be lengthened, as they are so fearful of life outside, or else quickly reoffend on release in order to get back inside.

But for all that the YOI provides a roof, food, care and boundaries, it is certainly not a comfortable or friendly place. The article ends with the words of a seventeen year-old gang-leader: ‘Jail is just shit isn’t it? How can they make you better if you’re locked up with all your enemies?’

Social enterprise and child poverty

2011-11-21T08:38:00.005Z

I went to a fascinating lecture at the RSA on Thursday about the role of social enterprises and social franchising in mitigating the effects of child poverty. Listen to it here. The speaker was June O’Sullivan, CEO of London Early Years Foundation. She talked about the impact of poverty on children’s social, emotional and intellectual development. There are few aspects of children’s lives on which poverty does not have an affect: behaviour, health, language and literacy (this particularly close to my heart because of the training I give on reading in the early years), capacity to learn. Appallingly, the children and families who need the best childcare, in order to improve their lives and their life chances, are the ones who usually get the worst. Social enterprises such as LEYF are trying to rectify this, and they are now exploring how to spread good practice through social franchising. Guided by ethical principles, they aim for excellent, multi-generational provision in areas of greatest need. We saw an inspiring video of great early years practice in deprived areas of London that truly engages with young children and their families.

Exhibition of art by offenders

2011-11-16T08:49:00.000Z

There are just a few days left to see the inspirational Koestler Trust exhibition of art by offenders and secure patients at the Royal Festival Hall. I am so pleased to have got to it. My especial interest was in the young people’s works on display, because of the training I give on engaging with young offenders. I found their art moving and poignant, and in some cases beautiful, disturbing or funny. I was delighted that the fabulous 1066 animation made by young people with the Norfolk Youth Offending Team and the Castle Museum, which I have blogged about before, is on show, and has won a special award for animation for under-18s. There is another fabulous animation, Call for Help, about a trip to Hell, made by a group of six young offenders at Blair House YOI. Disappoint Man, a tellingly-named portrait by an anonymous inmate at Feltham YOI, is troubling and enigmatic: does the face portray fear, aggression, distrust, or perhaps all of these? The blurb written by the anonymous creator of a lovely picture called Snowfields, who comes from a secure children’s home in Scotland, particularly struck me: ‘I was not interested in art at all until I was placed into a secure centre. I believe art has helped to increase my confidence in myself.’ Underlining this, a poster in the exhibition demonstrates the impact of the arts on young offenders’ lives: 75% of young offenders who participated in summer arts colleges run by Unitas in 2009 went onto further education, training or employment.

It doesn’t have to rhyme: children and poetry

2011-11-15T09:49:00.002Z

Saturday's IBBY conference was fantastic. Wonderful sessions by great poets and academics on how poetry works and why it matters.

Morag Styles was inspiring, demonstrating how poetry 'gets to the parts other literature doesn’t reach'. Like many of the speakers, she lamented current literacy teaching (especially the ‘eat up your greens’ approach to poetry teaching), and public sector budget cuts, and their impact on children’s access to poetry. But she also celebrated the fact that children’s poetry still thrives, in schools and out - lovely to hear about poems on Wimpy napkins.

And just to prove her words, we saw a fantastic video of poetry slam winner Sarah Olowofoyeku performing ‘Please mind the gap’, and heard about contemporary poetry publishing from an expert panel.

Michael Rosen’s lecture on how poetry ‘does its stuff’ was brilliant: erudite, insightful and very funny. Who else would think to use ‘It’s raining, it’s pouring’ as their main text? He had loads of practical ideas for making schools poetry-friendly. Instead of adjective-spotting exercises, the emphasis should be on performance and on open discussion that delves into meaning and children’s responses.

I felt very lucky to attend a workshop by Kimberly Black and Imogen Church. Kimberly was fascinating about the prevalence and value of young people’s spoken word poetry in the US, showing us how participatory poetry is a form of democratic engagement. Imogen was very interesting on poetry written by juvenile offenders. Writers working with young offenders know never to ask them to write poems; suggesting ‘spitting bars’ is a whole lot more acceptable.

Philip Gross gave us yet more proof of the power of poetry with fabulous renditions of poems from his newest book, Off Road to Everywhere. The conference ended with a fascinating talk by the amazing Jacqueline Wilson on the processes of putting together her new anthology of poems for girls, Green Glass Beads.

Recommended books for early years

2011-11-12T17:00:00.000Z

Worth looking at this list of top thirty books for babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers on the Made for Mums website. Lots of wonderful books on it - and lots of room for debate informally and in groups about what books other people would include.

The photo says all that needs to be said about what good picture books offer. Such lovely shared absorption here.

Visit to Brent Virtual School

2011-11-10T10:30:00.002Z

I had a very interesting meeting with all the team at Brent Virtual School earlier this week. It was great to hear about the work they do to support Brent’s looked-after children. I was so impressed about the results they are achieving: Brent scores 7^th highest in the country in terms of A*-C GCSEs attained by LAC, despite the fact that it is an authority with very high levels of deprivation. I met several of their students at a stage performance a few months ago, and can testify to their skills and motivation.

Letterbox Club is having a fantastic impact in Brent. The children love receiving the books and games in the post. Having books of their own and being members of a club are hugely appealing to them. One girl expressed amazement and delight that the parcels reached her even when she had moved. Reading tests at Y3 and Y5 before and after gifting have demonstrated significant improvements. The team say the rise in reading levels among Brent’s LAC recently highlighted by Ofsted had a lot to do with the scheme. I am sure the great partnership between the Virtual School and the Library Service also plays a big part in building enthusiasm for reading as well as reading skills. The Service supports LAC in other ways too, with fun days for example, and exciting contributions to celebration events. Lots of looked-after teenagers get work experience in Brent libraries.

Hopefully I will be giving some training on supporting LAC reading for Brent foster carers next year. I am already looking forward to it.

Visit to Oasis Children's Centre

2011-11-07T14:00:00.001Z

I am currently investigating good early years and family provision for some courses I am preparing for library, museum and gallery staff, and was invited to visit a story and play session at Oasis Children’s Centre in the London Borough of Enfield. What a wonderful time I had - and so most certainly did all the children and other adults who attended. The children ranged in age from under 18 months to just pre-school, and the morning was structured to appeal to them all, with lots of play, rhymes, music and books. David Pickering, pictured here with just one of his many props, had everyone enthralled. He has been doing weekly sessions at the Centre for three years, and is evidently a great favourite. He told me that his particular focus is on developing children’s language skills, though undoubtedly their social, emotional and creative skills also benefit enormously from his approach. He’s a dab hand on the ukulele. The session included a trip to the library of Oasis Academy next door to listen to some extra picture books. Both there and in the Centre, it was lovely to watch masses of very enthusiastic joining-in.

Many thanks to David, to Josie Layzell from Enfield Library Service, and to Kerry, Marie and everyone else at the Children’s Centre.

UK public perceptions of children

2011-11-04T10:07:00.001Z

Yesterday saw the release of the results of a recent poll into public perceptions of children commissioned by Barnado’s. The findings are terrifying and deeply depressing. A staggering 49% of the UK population agree that children today are beginning to behave like animals. 25% think that children who behave badly or anti-socially are beyond help by the age of 10. More people disagreed with the statement that children who get into trouble are in need of help (38%) than agreed (36 %). All this despite the fact that the majority of children are well behaved and that significant numbers contribute to their communities.

Parental engagement

2011-11-01T10:16:00.001Z

The benefits of parental engagement in their children's learning are huge. Review of best practice in parental engagement presents the evidence succinctly and sets out guidelines on how to make it happen. It is particularly aimed at schools, but practitioners who are interested in family learning and family literacy in museums, libraries and other cultural and heritage organisations will also find it helpful. This is a very useful summary.

Another new report identifies a further reason for developing parental engagement. The influence of parents, places and poverty on educational attitudes and aspirations, finds a clear alignment between what parents say they want for their children and what young people aspire to themselves, suggesting that to raise aspirations it is important to work with parents as well as young people, particularly where parents face disadvantages themselves. The report is well worth reading for its other findings too.

There are still some places available on a training course on family learning I am giving in London on 17 November, for people working in libraries, museums, galleries, archives and other cultural settings.

The photo shows parental engagement in action, in a family workshop I gave in Enfield.

Reading with Kids

2011-10-27T16:09:00.001+01:00

I have belatedly caught up with Reading with Kids, last weekend’s Guardian and Observer supplements on encouraging reading. Definitely worth a look. There are lots of tips on good books for different ages. Having had a book-loving four year-old to stay over the last few days, I can testify to the appeal of many of the recommended picture books. There are also a number of valuable articles. These are two I found especially interesting: h ow technology can benefit children’s books and the appeal of dystopian fiction to young adults.

The photo shows some happy reading during a First Steps family literacy session in Enfield.

Action for Children

2011-10-24T10:42:00.001+01:00

I had a fascinating meeting last week with Action for Children. I know the charity for its great work with looked-after children, which is what we predominantly talked about, but their remit is huge: to support and campaign for the UK’s most vulnerable and neglected children and young people ‘for as long as it takes to make a difference to their lives’. I was very impressed to hear about the help they provide for young carers, as just one example.

We talked about training in relation to looked-after children, particularly for their independent visitors, volunteers who befriend children and young people in care. The idea is for a course exploring ways to make learning and cultural experiences accessible, relevant and enjoyable for the young people they spend time with. It may be that we open up the training to people working in the cultural sector too. I really hope we can get this off the ground. It’s a very exciting notion.

Andersen award nominees celebration evening

2011-10-20T15:26:00.000+01:00

I felt very fortunate to attend Tuesday evening’s celebration of the two IBBY UK nominees for the international Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2012. It was wonderful to listen to John Burningham and Philip Pullman talking about their lives and their work.

I loved hearing about Burningham’s failure to pass an art exam, and about the chance encounter on Waterloo Bridge that despite this led him into graphic art and illustration. His recollections of his friendship with Jan Pienkowski were very entertaining: they spent lots of time playing canasta. But of course, it was his insights into his books that were really special. Once he has an idea for a book, he does dozens of mapped-out pages until the text and the pictures gradually coalesce. Mr Gumpy’s Outing has always been one of my favourite picture books, so I was delighted to hear about its inception, particularly how My Gumpy’s iconic house arrived pretty well fully formed in his head. Burningham has been producing fabulous books for children for nearly fifty years. He gave great pleasure to the audience when he said that he will keep going as long as he can, and will only stop if he finds he is repeating himself - something that I am sure will never happen.

I have been lucky enough to hear Pullman a number of times. He is a compelling speaker. I had not realised that the brilliant Ruby in the Smoke originated in one of the plays that he wrote for his pupils years earlier when he was a teacher, and I was very interested in his not entirely favourable response to the TV adaptation. The late Victorian period is evidently one that Pullman finds enormously thought-provoking, and it was good to hear that he intends to return to Sally Lockhart in the future. Of course there was lots of discussion about His Dark Materials. Pullman said that the most thrilling moment he has ever had as a writer was when he came up with the notion that children’s daemons change, while those of adults remain the same. He also explained that for him the most important thing is the voice in which his stories are told, something he sees as more fundamental than the plot. He is going to return to Lyra too, though not before he has finished his current re-tellings of Grimm’s tales.

Encouraging reading for pleasure

2011-10-13T09:20:00.001+01:00

It’s great to see that the Department for Education website now has several pages on the importance of reading for pleasure and how to foster it. There’s a useful summary of research on the value of reading for pleasure in terms of attitudes and attainment, and lots of practical methods for promoting reading in the library, the classroom and throughout the school. Reading choice, peer recommendation, role models and parental engagement all feature strongly in the strategies and case studies contributed by librarians and teachers, as you would expect, and there are plenty of other good ideas. Definitely worth a visit for anyone interested in children's and young people's reading.

I took the photo during a lovely visit to Oxford Gardens Primary School, where inspiring reading for pleasure is a high priority.

Teenagers, reading and libraries

2011-10-07T09:57:00.000+01:00

Some of you may be interested in a new article of mine on how libraries can inspire reading among teenagers, particularly teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds. It has just been published in IBBYLink, the journal of the UK branch of IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People. The spur for the article was a session I ran on the subject as part of a seminar for the University of Missouri on public libraries for social justice.

Teenage reading, and libraries' role in encouraging it, are big passions of mine. I took the photo at a great Warhammer session at South Woodford Library in Redbridge. Crowds of young people regularly beat a path to the library on Friday nights. I was fascinated by the amount of reading I saw, as they checked up on intricate gaming rules, battle formations and characters. Several boys told me how Warhammer had made them into much keener readers as it has introduced them to fantasy and science fiction. Just one example of the impact libraries can have.

Primary school library visit

2011-10-04T10:04:00.002+01:00

I felt very lucky last week to visit a particularly lovely primary school library. I am currently preparing a new primary school library course for Barnet and Enfield Schools Library Services, and wanted to add to the photographs I aim to show to give delegates new ideas. Neil Angrave from Barnet suggested that the library at Martin Primary School would be an excellent one to see. How right he was. It is so bright and welcoming, and clearly very popular with the pupils. I especially liked all the face-on display, the cushioned reading bench with room for friends to read together, and the dual-language picture books made by children. It was delightful to be given a very expert tour by the four current pupil librarians. They could not be more proud of the library, and are wonderful ambassadors for it throughout the school. I was also very pleased to be asked to take part in a year five library lesson on reading enjoyment and reading choices. The children had all sorts of great ideas for working out what would appeal to them, not least listening to what their friends say, which is of course one of the very best. They were given lots of time to put what we had all been talking about into practice as they chose their books - I just wish this was the case in all schools - and I loved observing lots of animated discussions among themselves as well as with the teacher and the library coordinator.

A big thank you to Saadia Ali and the fabulous librarians, and to Neil.

The role of cultural and heritage organisations in supporting young offenders

2011-09-30T16:51:00.001+01:00

It was great to give a course on working with young offenders for CILIP South East yesterday with John Vincent of The Network. The participants were highly experienced and deeply committed, with representatives from galleries, archives, public libraries and libraries in prisons and young offender institutions (YOIs). We explored how cultural and heritage organisations can contribute to YOIs’ agendas in terms of building young offenders’ confidence and self-esteem, fostering practical and social skills, and reducing re-offending rates. I found the debates about the constituents of effective projects and on-going work to support young offenders particularly interesting. Evidence shows that young offenders are more likely to respond enthusiastically to schemes that tie in with their interests and experiences, produce something tangible, and give them a sense of achievement. The involvement of the young people themselves in decisions is crucial. Storybook Dads, the Six Book Challenge and the Arts Award have been used extremely successfully in many YOIs, to give just a few examples. We talked about the importance of developing good partnerships between YOIs and cultural and heritage organisations, and the value of preventative approaches, working with Youth Offender Teams and virtual schools, for instance. Many thanks to everyone for sharing so many excellent ideas, and an especial thank you to Rachel Westworth for her invaluable case study on her work with young offenders at HMP Lewes.

While on the subject of young offenders, this is a useful article about how ex-offenders are helping turn young people away from crime.

Maurice Sendak on children’s books

2011-09-27T11:43:00.000+01:00

For anyone interested in children’s books and reading, there’s a fascinating interview with Maurice Sendak on the New York Times website. Now 83, he talks about his own books and reflects on contemporary children’s literature. He worries that not all of it is truthful or faithful to what’s going on with children, that there is ‘a certain passivity, a going back to childhood innocence that I never quite believed in.’ Children’s books should not shield children from reality, in his view. For all the controversy that Where the Wild Things Are and some of his other picture books provoked, however, all provide security by the end. Max comes home to a hot meal: his mother still loves him, despite their arguments. For Sendak this is crucial.

Family learning in the cultural and heritage sector

2011-09-22T13:09:00.005+01:00

I have been a family literacy tutor for many years, and my work in schools and libraries has made me a passionate believer in the value of family learning. I have experienced first hand the transformations that it can achieve for both children and adults. It is incredibly exciting and moving to watch skills and confidence grow. This family were dedicated attenders of a series of family literacy workshops I gave for Barnet Libary Service. Their concentration says so much.

I love giving training on family literacy and on family learning more generally, and I am delighted there is so much interest in putting on family learning programmes and activities in the cultural and heritage sector. In addition to the important benefits to families that these initiatives bring, they are also excellent in terms of breaking down barriers and creating new audiences. My next openly available family learning course is on 17 November, run by Creating Capacity. We will have the opportunity to explore ways to make family learning a reality in museums, galleries, libraries, archives and other heritage organisations, and I will bring along lots of inspiring case studies. In the meantime, there is a very useful recent publication on the topic from niace, for anyone who has not already seen it.

Reading champions and reading buddies

2011-09-16T11:40:00.000+01:00

Inexperienced and poor readers need lots of help to overcome the barriers to reading success. It’s an issue I am asked for training on time and time again. I always make sure that paired and shared reading feature in the strategies discussed. Support and encouragement from cool older role models has a huge impact. Thousands of boys up and down the country have benefited from the National Literacy Trust’s Reading Champions scheme. Lots of teenagers do amazing volunteer work to help children involved in the Summer Reading Challenge held in public libraries every year. For many years both primary and secondary schools have achieved excellent results by pairing older students with younger ones to boost motivation and provide practical reading assistance. It’s great to see this reading buddy concept reaching into the public library arena. Slough Library Service has found it a valuable tool for addressing literacy problems. Primary children (those identified by their schools as likely to benefit most) meet their secondary school buddies (chosen on the basis of enthusiasm and reliability) in the library for an hour a week over an eight week period. They read to their partners, do fun literacy-based activities and are encouraged to choose books to read at home between sessions. Training is provided for the teenagers. Children and parents report improved reading skills, more positive attitudes to reading and greater confidence. Teenagers too report an increase in confidence - a common and important finding with paired reading schemes. Additional reward comes in the shape of certificates of achievement for the children and the letters of recognition for their older partners.

CILIP members can access an interesting article about Slough Libraries’ approach on page 43 of the August edition of Update.

Training courses on working with young offenders

2011-09-10T12:24:00.010+01:00

A quick reminder that John Vincent and I are giving another course on engaging effectively with young offenders in Crawley on 29 September. The course is for people working in the cultural and heritage sector, including libraries, museums, galleries and archives. For anyone unable to make that date or venue, we are repeating the course in Leeds on 23 November.

There is more about our training on this topic on my website.

The Class Ceiling

2011-09-06T12:47:00.033+01:00

I have just caught up with this excellent radio programme about class and social mobility. The first of a series on the subject, it sets out to ask what can boost or block a child’s chances of breaking the ‘class ceiling’ at home, school and university.

The programme opens with an analysis of social mobility in the UK. Presenter and journalist Polly Toynbee questions whether she would have made it into her profession if she had not come from a family of writers and academics and been surrounded as a child by books and discussion. Middle class parents demonstrate how they are providing platforms for their children from the earliest age that will open doors: buying them stimulating toys, taking them to baby yoga classes and to rhyme times in libraries (great to hear these being publicly valued), later making sure they get a good education. We are left in no doubt about the importance of family background: a baby’s environment has a permanent effect on her or his growing brain; class differences are evident in levels of achievement at twenty-two months; the gap between the verbal skills of rich and poor children widens by 50% between their third and fifth birthdays; 77% of middle class children get five good GCSEs, while just 32% of working class students do.

Interventions can change things. Reading is mentioned as a game-changer a number of times. Two mothers talk movingly about the impact of the early years PEEP project on their parenting, and on their children’s confidence and abilities. Both single out the importance of sharing books with their children. Gavin Kelly, Education Adviser to the previous government, discusses the success of the Every Child a Reader programme, and laments its scrapping in many areas. David Willetts, who sits on the present government’s social mobility committee, tells us that children with high ability from low income families must never be written off, that interventions are relevant at every stage. However we also hear that not all interventions have the desired consequences: the opening up of university education has largely benefited the middle classes. Not exclusively though. Cockermouth School has an outstanding record of getting students from disadvantaged backgrounds into top universities as a result of intensive mentoring and individual guidance sessions. The possible effect on social mobility of the rise in university fees is left an open question.

Important listening.

Book Aid International

2011-09-03T13:17:00.000+01:00

I had a fascinating meeting earlier this week at Book Aid Internationa l. It was great to hear how the operation works. Every year the charity sends half a million books to public and community libraries, and libraries in schools, universities, slums, refugee centres, NGOs and prisons in sub-Saharan Africa and Palestine. They make huge efforts to source and supply the kinds of reading materials that are wanted on the ground in each of the countries they work with. Books on education, medicine, computing, law, business and careers are requested time and time again. Fiction is very popular. E-books are becoming increasingly important in some countries. All the books are new. Many publishers in the UK donate generously. Book Aid International also buys a lot of books published in Africa.

Given my involvement in children’s and young people’s reading, I was particularly interested in their support for children’s literacy. Children’s books form a large proportion of the books they supply: non-fiction, fiction, picture books for all ages and abilities, and books for children with low literacy levels. Karen Sharkey, the Programme Development Librarian, and I had an engrossing discussion about cultural sensitivity. The charity also runs programmes aimed specifically at ensuring children have access to books, Children’s Book Corners in Tanzania and Kenya for example, and The Library in a Box scheme, launched in Zanzibar, and now rolling out more widely. They also provide training for teachers and librarians, and have recently produced Bringing Books to Life, a guide to running child friendly libraries.

There is a literary quiz in London on 8 September to fundraise for Book Aid International. Still just time to put a team together.

Children’s books featuring disability

2011-08-30T11:44:00.002+01:00

For anyone interested in children’s books and/or disability issues, ‘Ten of the best children’s novels with disabled characters’ in the latest edition of Books for Keeps is extremely valuable. Some of the books on the list are renowned, such as the wonderful Before I Die by Jenny Downham, but Rebecca Butler also includes less well-known titles. The majority of the books portray physical disability. Most are aimed at readers of eleven or more.

Scope’s In the Picture campaign raises awareness of the need to include disabled children in picture books. Everything on the site is useful, especially Positive storybooks featuring disabled characters.

Letterbox Library supplies a wide range of books with disability themes for children in the early years and key stages 1 and 2 (five to eleven year-olds).

Bookmark: Books and Disability is another helpful resource.

Healthy Books, which I have blogged about before, has listings of children's books on a number of disability topics.

Good children’s books featuring learning disabilities and other special educational needs are celebrated annually in the nasen Inclusive Children’s Book Award, won this year by The Pasta Detectives by Andreas Steinhöfel. The other nasen awards are also well worth checking out.

Youth workers and literacy

2011-08-25T10:18:00.000+01:00

Another interesting article from Children and Young People Now. In ‘Skills for the job: literacy problems’ Emily McCoy from the National Literacy Trust outlines the links between literacy and life chances, and explores ways in which youth workers can support young people who struggle with reading. I like McCoy’s suggestions for buddy systems and business mentors, and totally endorse what she says about the importance of celebrating all types of reading and writing, not least websites, blogs, magazines and text messages. I am very pleased that links with libraries feature prominently in her advice.

I have worked with youth workers over literacy projects, and can testify to the value of their involvement. They are great at providing young people who are disengaged with education with different ways of looking at issues. There are many excellent partnerships in the UK between library services and youth service providers, which have had a profound impact on young people’s attitudes to reading and their literacy skills. I so hope that the devastating cuts to youth provision and to many library services that we are currently seeing do not put an end to this vital literacy support.

Looked-after children and the cultural and heritage sector

2011-08-22T09:00:00.000+01:00

Great to see Children and Young People Now highlighting Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service’s brilliant work with looked-after children (detailed more fully in the report ‘I didn’t know I could’).

I give lots of training on working with looked-after children in cultural and heritage organisations and elsewhere, and I wish more people both within and outside the sector were aware of the fantastic initiatives happening up and down the country. I spoke to a very dedicated and inspired designated teacher recently, and even she had no idea there was any specific provision for LAC in museums, galleries, libraries or archives. I have blogged previously about successful schemes at the Natural History Museum and the Foundling Museum. A key factor with all these projects is that they have not been confined to looked-after children and young people, but have also involved their foster families, their birth families where appropriate, and in some cases their friends. And crucially engagement is active and creative.

My co-trainer on lots of the LAC courses I give is John Vincent of The Network. He has put together a valuable list of information resources on looked-after children and young people. Well worth checking out. For library staff, the sets of ‘Right to Read’ Tips on the list are particularly helpful.

Where’s Your Mama Gone (again)

2011-08-18T19:00:00.002+01:00

A little while back I blogged about Where’s Your Mama Gone at New End Theatre. Since then I’ve attended two very interesting performances. Unusually, the first of these took place in the morning, so that the BBC could produce a piece about it for a London news programme that evening. The audience included a dozen or so looked-after teenagers, who came with the Brent Virtual School. Their reactions to the play, which explores the impact of being in care, were fascinating and moving. They were very eloquent, first in their responses to the journalist’s questions, and later in the post-show discussion with the play’s writer, Brian Daniels, and the actor Shirley Anne Field. Field is an ambassador for Action for Children and was herself in care as a child. Many of the young people had experienced similar issues to Stephen and Carol, the two chief characters, particularly being left alone, being hungry, being lonely. For some of them, the beatings were also all too familiar. However they talked too about possibilities for change - about the importance of making the right choices. For some of them the play was clearly cathartic, and left them with a sense of optimism. I spoke to one young man afterwards who told me that his head was bursting with all the thoughts the play had sparked.

Yesterday I went again, this time myself in the role of discussion co-host. It was extremely interesting to hear audience members’ views about the situations the play presents, about the care system in general (we were very lucky to have two people from the Who Cares? Trust), and about the role of theatre - and the arts more widely - in tackling this and other important social issues. It was great to hear that Daniels intends to take the production into schools to raise awareness and debate among lots more young people.

Next Friday I am co-hosting the post-show discussion again, this time with the play’s director, Alexa Christopher-Daniels. I am very much looking forward to it. I am sure I will go away with even more food for thought. This is all so relevant in terms of my courses on working with looked-after children.

Autism-friendly cinema screenings

2011-08-13T12:16:00.004+01:00

I am very pleased that I was tuned in to Radio 4 on a car journey yesterday. As a result I have found out about a great initiative to make films and the cinema more accessible to people with autism and Asperger's syndrome. You and Yours had a fascinating item about the difference autism-friendly screenings are making to children, young people and their carers for whom cinema visits are usually problematic or impossible. The darkness during screenings creates anxiety for many autistic people; for many the sound level is disturbingly high; too much time is taken up with trailers and adverts; cinema food is laden with additives that have a bad effect on behaviour; freedom of movement is too restricted; responses from other audience members to autistic children’s excitement can be upsetting. At autism-friendly screenings, the lights are not dimmed to the usual extent, the sound level is set lower, adverts and trailers are left out, families can bring their own snacks, and there are no problems with children getting up and down or expressing their enthusiasm.

You can listen to the You and Yours item - scroll through to 39 minutes into the programme. The BBC website has an interesting article about an autism-friendly screening in Richmond.

This has certainly increased my awareness of the issues families with autistic children and young people face on trips out, and has made me reflect on the lessons for museums, libraries and the cultural and heritage sector more widely. I am looking forward to incorporating discussion about this into my courses on special educational needs.

Launch event for new book by Benjamin Zephaniah

2011-08-13T10:17:00.000+01:00

I was very lucky to attend the launch of a new book by Benjamin Zephaniah recently. When I Grow Up aims to break down stereotypes and open children's minds to the range of roles available to them. It has poems by Zephaniah, along with photos and information about inspirational people in unusual occupations. A number of them attended the event, an amazing maths clown, for example, and the wonderful space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, whom I felt very privileged to meet, along with her lovely young daughter.

It was fabulous to hear Zephaniah. He talked about his childhood, and how he overcame the very low expectations people had of him. Even his mother was somewhat scornful of his ambition from the age of eight to be a poet (perhaps not surprisingly, given that he did not read or write till he was thirteen). Life as a gangster or at best a painter and decorator were seen to be more on the cards. His new book was inspired in large part by his own experiences of being stereotyped and misjudged.

Zephaniah is currently poet in residence at Keats House in Hampstead, which was the perfect venue for the launch.

Seminar on libraries and social justice for the University of Missouri

2011-08-05T10:44:00.002+01:00

I had the huge pleasure of being one of the trainers at a seminar on Tuesday for PhD and Masters students from the School of Information Science and Learning Technology at the University of Missouri. They are currently on a study tour of the UK, studying for two courses: ‘Libraries, literacy and social justice’ and ‘International libraries in context’. The theme of Tuesday’s seminar was social justice and public libraries, and it was organised jointly by the International Library and Information Group, the Network and myself.

My session was on promoting reading to young people, particularly the links between literacy and teenagers’ life-chances, and the important role of libraries in making reading relevant and enjoyable to teenagers. The discussions were fascinating, and very wide-ranging. We were particularly fortunate in having four young people talking movingly and eloquently about their reading and their involvement with Barnet Library Service. Very many thanks to Kareem, Casey, Rebecca and Elizabeth for their fantastic contributions, which really brought the subject to life, and to the wonderful Barnet library staff.

The seminar ended with an extremely stimulating question and answer session which focused especially on how libraries on both sides of the Atlantic can continue to contribute to social justice at a time of severe budgetary cuts.

I came away from the seminar with my head buzzing. I always love being involved in training that has an international perspective. There was so much food for thought, and lots of ideas that will have a bearing on future training, and indeed on an article I am just embarking on which will be exploring the theme of my session.

Broke, not broken: tackling youth poverty and the aspiration gap

2011-07-30T09:00:00.002+01:00

This new report from the Prince’s Trust investigates the impact of youth poverty on young people’s aspirations and self-belief. It exposes a huge gap in aspiration between the UK’s richest and poorest young people. Young people growing up in poverty are four times more likely to believe that they will not be able to achieve their life and career goals than those from wealthy backgrounds. It is clear from the report that material poverty in young adulthood is not only strongly linked to poverty of expectations and life-chances but also to poor self-confidence and poor mental and physical health.

These are some other findings in relation to young people from the UK’s poorest families that are particularly significant for people working in schools, colleges and libraries and other parts of the cultural and heritage sector:

more than a quarter had few or no books in their home
one in three were rarely or never read to by their parents
more than a third did not have anywhere quiet at home to do their schoolwork and two-fifths did not have a desk
more than a quarter had no access to a computer and almost one in three did not have access to the internet
many have struggled with their education

The report contains a number of inspirational case studies: young people who with the help of the Prince’s Trust have succeeded in breaking the cycle of poverty. It concludes with a call to government and businesses to work more closely with charities to improve social mobility and raise aspirations more widely.

The report makes challenging reading. It will certainly inform my training, especially my courses on working with teenagers .

The power of rhyme

2011-07-26T13:37:00.001+01:00

What a treat to happen upon With Great Pleasure on Radio 4 this morning. The wonderful science writer Simon Singh shared some of his favourite pieces of literature. Actually, several of them would probably not usually merit the term literature, which is not to belittle his fabulous choices at all. I especially loved his lead-in to a parody of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. The original is apparently Singh’s toddler son’s number one nursery rhyme. Singh joked that he likes to think of it as an introduction to astronomy. While this is a rather unusual perspective on the value of nursery rhymes, there is plenty of evidence that they play an important part in children’s learning.

I am currently working up a course on library rhyme times, as a follow up to a training day on early years library provision. It has been great to visit some inspirational sessions and to talk to library staff and parents and carers to help me build up a complete picture of good policy and practice. One grandmother spoke to me in glowing terms about the impact rhyme and toddler times have had on her grandson. She praised their effect on his social and emotional development - they have made him much less shy - and was in no doubt about their contribution to his language development and general learning.

I have learnt a lot from my visits and discussions that will inform not only my early years and new rhyme time training, but also my courses on family learning and family literacy, and not just for library staff, but in museums and across the cultural and heritage sector generally. Very many thanks to Enfield Library Service in particular.

Where’s Your Mama Gone: a play about the impact of the care system

2011-07-20T19:00:00.001+01:00

New End Theatre in Hampstead, London is shortly putting on what sounds a fascinating and moving play about the impact of being in care. Where’s Your Mama Gone by Brian Daniels is about six year-old twins whose mother has been murdered by a serial killer. With their father already in prison, they are taken into care. The consequences of their loss of heritage and identity follow them into adulthood. A previous production in Leeds got great reviews.

The play is on from 2 to 28 August. Each performance will be followed by a discussion, and I am delighted to have been asked by the playwright to co-host one of these. A Heritage Lottery funded exhibition featuring the experiences of people who have spent time in the care system accompanies the play.

Admittance is on a pay what you can afford basis: people who can afford the standard ticket price of £15 enable young people who can't afford to pay to see a play about issues that affect them most.

There is more information here.

Supporting children with special educational needs in the cultural and heritage sector

2011-07-15T17:28:00.002+01:00

It’s great to have a chance somewhat late in the day to reflect on a training course on engaging effectively with children with learning difficulties that I gave last week for Creating Capacity. The delegates were fantastic, and between them had very extensive experience of working with children and young people in museums, both local and national, archives, libraries and the cultural and heritage sector more widely. (Lovely to have Historic Royal Palaces represented.) We were able to explore the needs of children with learning disabilities in depth, and the barriers to access and learning that need to be overcome. The combination of the case studies that I had brought and the experiences of all the course members enabled us to identify the factors for successful activities and programmes. These came out as some of the most important:

•    partnership working
•    sensitive and non-patronising face-to-face communication
•    positive reinforcement and praise
•    simple language with no jargon
•    linking concepts to things children know and understand
•    active engagement
•    practical hands-on activities
•    multi-sensory approaches
•    activities that produce something tangible
•    flexibility
•    effective planning, monitoring and evaluation

Young runaways

2011-07-13T09:59:00.001+01:00

The Children’s Society has just published an important report, Making Runaways Safe, to highlight the incidence and plight of young runaways in England, and call for coordinated action to address the problem.

The report contains disturbing data. 100,000 children run away from home or care each year in this country. That’s a child every five minutes. A quarter of them are forced out by their parents or carers, others are escaping conflict, neglect or abuse. In 2005 most runaways were between thirteen and fifteen, with a quarter under thirteen, and one in ten nine or under. Latest trends suggest that the proportion of runaways who are under thirteen is increasing. Children in care are three times more likely to run away than their peers. Children who are facing difficulties at school are more likely to run away than others, as are those who consider themselves as disabled or having learning difficulties.

Many young runaways end up on the street. They may steal or rob for survival. Many become substance misusers. There is a clear link between children who run away from home and child sexual exploitation. Mobile phones and social networking sites are making it easier for predators to target vulnerable young runaways.

Eighty percent of young runaways do not seek help, because they do not know who to turn to or trust. Two-thirds of cases go unreported. According to the report, agencies such as the police and local authorities are unaware of the scale and nature of the problem and often fail to see runaways as children in need.

Children's Book Festivals

2011-07-06T18:58:00.002+01:00

There are two fantastic and very different book children’s book festivals on this weekend.

Families in London should definitely make a beeline for the first ever Pop Up Festival of Stories. The array of activities for both Saturday and Sunday is amazing, with story-telling, workshops, poetry sessions, film, puppetry, magic and more. There will even be surgeries by Book Doctor Julia Eccleshare. The line-up of children’s authors, illustrators and poets who are appearing is stunning. Michael Rosen, Philip Ardagh, Geraldine McCaughrean and Axel Scheffler are just a few of the famous names on the bill. Children’s and young people’s voices are well represented too. Pop Up is not only a Festival. Throughout last month and this one, thousands of children, young people and families in Camden and Islington have been reading books, meeting authors and making stories. You can find out more here.

The other festival is extremely unusual, in that it is entirely online. Saturday and Sunday see the children’s authors behind An Awfully Big Blog Adventure celebrating its third birthday with their first online literary festival: ABBA Lit Fest. Authors will pop in every half hour from morning till night with views, tips, book news and giveaways. Anne Cassidy, Celia Rees, Adele Geras, Nicola Morgan and Keren David are some of the high-profile names I spotted on the programme. All the posts will be archived, so this will be a festival that can be visited at any time.

Young people and homelessness

2011-06-30T14:45:00.026+01:00

Latest government figures show a record rise in the number of homeless young people in England - up 15% since last year. Last Friday’s TES magazine contained a disturbing but important item about the issue. Nowhere to call home explores the plight of young people ejected from their homes by parents or step-parents. Many resort to sleeping rough or sofa-surfing. All suffer mentally, emotionally and academically. Schools frequently fail to spot that students no longer have a home of their own, and may not react appropriately even once they know. The article provides hints for recognising the signs and ways to act on them. (As some people may remember, at least one school is fully clued up about this growing problem, and determined to alleviate its impact. Quintin Kynaston School in London is fund-raising for a hostel for its homeless students. You can read a Guardian article from last December about this here.)

The TES piece refers to Shelter’s resource pack for teachers. Their Good practice briefing: Engaging with homeless children is very valuable, and not just for educationalists. It is well worth looking at Shelter’s other good practice guides and briefings too. The Centrepoint website is also extremely informative.

Working with teenagers in museums and galleries

2011-06-28T13:42:00.002+01:00

I gave a course yesterday on engaging with young people for Creating Capacity. Although designed for anyone in the cultural heritage sector, in fact all the delegates were from museums and galleries, with responsibility either for learning or for audience development, so we were able to focus exclusively on those settings.

The discussions about teenagers’ needs and expectations and ways to meet them were fascinating. It was great to hear about fabulous initiatives from each of the delegates, and to have the opportunity to explore the success factors and the challenges, and the relative merits of one-off events and on-going projects. I found the debate about time-scales for the latter particularly interesting.

Not surprisingly, every successful event or programme we talked about - those the delegates had initiated, and the case studies I brought with me - featured active engagement by the young people involved, and a flexible approach that responded to individuals’ interests and skills. All also produced something tangible, either that the teenagers took away, or that could be shared with a wider audience. We heard about concerts of music written and performed by young people, about exhibitions curated by young people, about an online photography book, about animations shown in museums and online, about poetry slams and a whole lot more.

There were so many valuable discussions. The conversation about universal offers versus targeted promotions was an especially important one. Marketing and promotion were hotly debated. Social networking was seen as crucial, needless to say, but face-to-face communication scored very highly too. Everybody agreed the importance of partnership working. And under-scoring everything was the necessity for detailed planning and effective evaluation.

For anyone interested, there is more about my courses on working with teenagers in museums and galleries here.

Diverse Voices Children's Book Award and Seven Stories

2011-06-24T16:22:00.001+01:00

What a treat to attend the award ceremony for the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award at Seven Stories yesterday. For anyone who does not know, the award was set up to encourage and promote diversity in children’s fiction. It is given for the best unpublished novel celebrating cultural diversity by an author who has not published a children’s book before. The prize is £1500 plus the option for Frances Lincoln Children’s Books to publish the book.

The winner this year is Helen Limon for Om Shanti, Babe. Going on the extracts that were read out, and what the judges said, it sounds very clever, funny and engaging. Fourteen year-old Cassia visits India with her Fairtrade-obsessed mother, and finds her preconceptions well and truly shattered. I’m really looking forward to reading this, especially after talking to Helen about it. The book was inspired by a visit to Kerala with her daughter, and by her conversations with mothers and children there.

Yesterday’s ceremony also celebrated the publication of last year’s winning novel, Too Much Trouble, by Tom Avery. It’s a gripping book that I read at a sitting on my journey back from Newcastle. Emmanuel and Prince are illegal child immigrants from Africa. Their grim and precarious lives become a whole lot scarier when they get trapped in a modern-day Oliver Twist existence. It was really good to meet Tom. He has taught in both secondary and primary schools and definitely knows and understands children living at the margins.

Visiting Seven Stories was a delight. What a fantastic place! The Anthony Browne exhibition is fabulous. It was particularly lovely to watch two small girls excitedly donning Little Red Riding Hood coats before exploring the shadowy woods. I loved the Puffin exhibition too. Loads of favourite books, and lots of fascinating information about their inception and publication.

Borders Book Festival

2011-06-21T20:51:00.003+01:00

I had a great time at the Borders Book Festival last week. There was a fantastic programme of author talks and events, including lots for children and families. I heard a range of different authors, and all were extremely stimulating and thought-provoking. I would never have expected the Napoleonic Wars to be interesting, but Peter Snow had me and hundreds of others enthralled by his account of it. It was a complete treat to listen to Michael Frayn talking about his plays, novels and non-fiction. The crime writer Ann Cleeves, who is best known for her Vera Stanhope books, was fascinating and very funny. Given my interest in children's and young people's literacy, I was particularly caught by what she had to say about her workshops in schools. They sound excellent. She uses scene-of-crime tape from a friend in the police force to mark out a mock murder site, whips up the students’ interest and then gets them writing their own crime stories. All brilliant, but some schools’ approaches to creative writing appal her. One English teacher particularly outraged her. She went round criticising students' punctuation, and instructing them to write longer sentences. When Cleeves remonstrated, saying crime writing needs to be pacey, so short sentences are absolutely appropriate, the teacher responded that students had to demonstrate the ability to write with linked clauses. Not surprisingly, Cleeves despairs of an education system that places grammar ahead of creativity.

Plagiarism and the role of libraries

2011-06-17T17:05:00.003+01:00

Plagiarism is an issue that comes up time and time again in my courses on school libraries generally, and especially on my information literacy courses. (Public library staff are rightly concerned about it too, and it is often a hot topic of debate on homework help courses). In case anyone has missed them, there are two really useful new things to read on the subject. I reviewed Credit Where It’s Due: The School Library Preventing Plagiarism by John Royce for the latest edition of the School Librarian, and was very impressed. The book sets out the nature and scope of the problem succinctly and is full of ideas for helping to combat it. ‘Tackling plagiarism in schools - pre-emption or punishment’ is a valuable article by Sarah Pavey, published in the May edition of CILIP Update. CILIP members can find it online. Both authors give much-needed practical guidance for librarians on ways to raise plagiarism as a whole-school issue, and ways to help teachers and students prevent it.

Books for children dealing with difficult situations

2011-06-13T11:41:00.002+01:00

I have just had an email asking for information about books for children and young people who are dealing with very challenging situations. It occurs to me that lots of people might find these websites useful (the first two are UK sites, the last a US one):

Good Books for Tough Times
Healthy Books
Best Children’s Books: Bibliotherapy

All the sites provide lists of books under relevant headings. These are some of the headings in Healthy Books, for example:

Adoption/Fostering/Care
Behavioural problems
Bullying/Violence
Child abuse
Death and loss
Divorce/Separation
Eating problems/Obesity
Family relationships
Fears/Worries
Feelings/Emotions
Health problems and disabilities
Homelessness/Refugees/Immigration
Self-esteem/Being different

Supporting children and young people with special educational needs

2011-06-10T15:57:00.005+01:00

It was lovely to give a session for the Surrey branch of the School Library Association earlier this week on how school libraries can support pupils with special educational needs. Of all the topics I am asked for training on, supporting SEN children and young people is one of the closest to my heart. It matters so much.

We focused especially on Wednesday on ways to make books and reading accessible and enjoyable for children and young people for whom reading is difficult. A great group of librarians and teaching assistants shared some brilliant ideas. We heard about inspirational reading groups, fantastic reading buddy schemes and amazing improvements in children’s abilities and confidence as a result of library initiatives. There was lots too about appropriate publications and how to exploit them. As the venue was Heath Educational Books and they had kindly put together a display to accompany the session, everyone was able to explore a good range of books with a high interest level combined with a low reading age. It’s excellent that so many publishers now produce interesting and unpatronising books for children and young people who struggle with reading.

Then yesterday, when I was giving a course for people new to running primary school libraries, one of the delegates described another wonderful group. Her breakfast reading club is for year 5 and 6 pupils, almost all boys, for whom reading is very challenging. It was very moving to hear how the children have blossomed as a result of their shared reading three times a week. Reading about football, which all of them love - luckily the teaching assistant does too - has proved transformational.

I am very much looking forward to running another course on supporting children and young people with special educational needs on 7 July. This one is for Creating Capacity, and is open to anyone from museums, galleries, libraries, archives and other cultural and heritage organisations who is interested You can find details and booking information here.

Training course on working with young offenders

2011-06-06T09:51:00.011+01:00

There is a lot of interest at the moment on working with young offenders. John Vincent of the Network and I are giving another course for people from the cultural heritage sector (museums, libraries, galleries, archives etc) about young offenders and strategies for engaging with them effectively. It is being organised by CILIP South East and will be held on 29 September at Crawley Library. You can find information and booking details here. We are hoping to provide further courses on the subject in the Midlands and the North West at later dates. On my website, there is feedback about a previous course we gave on working with young offenders.

First Steps family literacy programme

2011-06-01T11:10:00.001+01:00

It is great to be working with children and families again this term. First Steps is a family literacy scheme that has been run by Enfield Library Service for eleven years. It is a six-week intervention programme designed to support the families of Year 1 children who are at risk of falling behind with their reading. The scheme has an impressive track record, and lots of schools apply to take part each year. All the schools chosen have low reading levels, and are in areas of significant deprivation.

The sessions take place in libraries, with fantastic assistance from library staff. Half of them involve the children and their parents and carers together, the other half are for the parents and carers alone, so that they can find ways to help their children without having to talk about problems in their presence. The emphasis throughout is on making reading fun, with lots about enjoying books together, and plenty on games and everyday activities to help children see reading as pleasurable rather than a chore. The sessions are very informal, very practical and very interactive. I am always tremendously impressed by the extent to which everyone gets involved, particularly as many of the parents and carers have very low levels of education, and few of them speak English as a first language. We always work with at least one interpreter, often with several.

This year, as usual, I am doing sessions morning and afternoon one day a week, in different libraries. All the families are lovely, and very keen. We are now three weeks into the programme, and all the parents and carers have made changes to the ways they are sharing books and reading with their children. For many, reading has become a whole family affair. Each family has spotted improvements in their children’s attitudes to reading. The children want to read more, because reading sessions are now enjoyable instead of stressful. And because the children are enjoying reading now, they are getting better at it.

I have been one of the First Steps tutors ever since the scheme started. Every year my knowledge and understanding grow, and my admiration for the amazing job parents and carers do in what are often appalling circumstances. My courses on family learning have all benefited enormously from the learning and experiences I have gained. I’m looking forward to next week’s sessions. Everyone’s going to be making books together. Should be great fun.

Cultural Olympiad project with looked-after young people

2011-05-28T12:35:00.004+01:00

Wednesday’s Society Guardian had an interesting article about a Stories of the World Cultural Olympiad project involving looked-after young people at the Foundling Museum. The young people met up with two elderly ‘foundling pupils’ as the abandoned children taken in by the Foundling Hospital were called, and then made sound installations based on their conversations. They also created wonderful artwork, which is currently on show at the museum. You can see some of it here too, and listen to a couple of the sound installations.

TES Magazine articles

2011-05-25T14:03:00.000+01:00

Two articles caught my eye in a recent TES Magazine. The first was a fascinating interview with Levi Roots, creator of Reggae Reggae Sauce. He talks about the embarrassment of entering secondary school unable to read (education was expensive in Jamaica, and at eleven this was his first experience of school) and about how he became a reader. ‘English was my favourite subject at school because it was in this class that I learnt how to read. Having books available to me and knowing that I was about to learn what was in them was exciting.’ Miss Corkery, his teacher, was clearly inspirational, particularly because she regularly read aloud to Roots’ class. His mother deserves lots of credit too, for what he calls her patience and tenacity in reading Enid Blyton books to her secondary school son. Only at fourteen was he able to read properly. An inspirational story.

The other article worth checking out highlights the on-going gap in educational achievement between looked-after children and the pupil population as a whole. Although the situation has improved in recent years, even now only just over a quarter of LAC achieve five A*-C GCSE passes, compared to three-quarters of all pupils. The article raises interesting questions, for example whether it is fair to require schools to reach the same standard with pupils from troubled backgrounds as their peers, and how current government thinking will impact on LAC attainment. You can find it here.

Graphic novels for the boys

2011-05-23T13:59:00.003+01:00

I have just come across the notes I made at an excellent and illuminating debate about graphic novels at the London Book Fair last month. Eoin Colfer spoke of his admiration and affection for the graphic novel versions of his books. While he is delighted when readers progress from these to the originals, he hates the idea of graphic novels being seen chiefly or solely as stepping stones into ‘proper’ books. INJ Culbard is also very clear about the value of graphic novels as works of art in their own right, however one specific intention of his adaptations of classic fiction is to lead young people to the originals. One motivation for Rob Davis’s work results from his son’s reading problems. He knows that his comic strips in the Murderous Maths series, Horrible Histories and other publications keep the attention of children with special educational needs like his son, and inspire their interest and learning. Brady Webb’s wife is a history teacher and she tells him how much graphic novels bring history to life, as well as the difference they make to young people’s reading. ‘We’ve come a long way since I was told comics would rot my brain’, he said. In answer to a question from the floor, Colfer told us that the notion that boys want reading that is simple and fast is wrong. It should be fast, but it should be complex. Despite the title of the debate, all the speakers agreed that graphic novels are not just for boys.

This discussion will certainly inform my courses on boys and reading, and other courses on children's and young people's reading.

Training courses on working with teenagers

2011-05-19T11:07:00.003+01:00

I always love giving training on working with teenagers in libraries, and I was delighted to give a course at CILIP yesterday on this topic. There was loads of excellent debate about teenagers’ needs and expectations, and ways to engage with them effectively and make libraries relevant and attractive to them. With delegates from public libraries, maintained and independent school libraries, FE college libraries, plus the University of Malta, there were masses of useful ideas shared for promoting libraries and reading that could readily be transferred from one type of setting to another. We talked a lot about the value of involving teenagers in day-to-day activities and decision-making, and there were plenty of ideas about how to get this to happen. Good face-to-face communication is of course crucial, and everyone’s thoughts on getting this right were illuminating and valuable. The discussions about the impact of social networking on young people’s lives and the implications for libraries were fascinating. It was also very interesting to hear a range of experiences of using e-books for leisure reading and academic purposes. Many thanks to everyone who came.

I am giving a repeat course for Creating Capacity on working with teenagers in London on June 27, full details here. This one is not only for library staff but also practitioners from museums, galleries, archives and other culture and heritage organisations, so it will provide a great opportunity to gain ideas from a wide variety of settings.

Looked-after children: 'I didn't know I could' report

2011-05-14T11:42:00.000+01:00

For those of you interested in work with looked-after children and young people, a useful report has just been published on the impact of museum-based activities for LAC in the East of England. The researchers observed a range of projects, and conducted interviews and group discussions with young people, carers, social workers and other professionals. They found consistent benefits for the children and young people involved in the projects, in terms of self-confidence, self-knowledge and identity, social skills and learning. The report includes a valuable set of recommendations, many of which are relevant to libraries and the whole of the cultural and heritage sector, not just to museums. There is a summary here, or you can read the full report here.

Reading in the early years

2011-05-06T15:15:00.001+01:00

I always love giving courses on reading in the early years - it is such an exciting issue. It was great to provide training recently to a fantastic group of early years practitioners from very diverse settings. There was lots of excellent discussion about ways to engender a love of books and reading in very young children. As ever, I included a hands-on session during the day in which small groups each explored a varied selection of picture books and debated ideas for exploiting them. I was delighted that everyone came across books that were new to them, and that as a result of their discussions they all went away armed with new ideas for using both those and old favourites. I was also fascinated, as I often have been before, by the passions that some of the books evoked, positive in most cases, but not in all. One group adored Ernest by Catherine Rayner, one of my favourite author/illustrators, while another hated Augustus and his Smile (which I especially love), a reminder for everyone that to enthuse children about books, we must use ones that we enjoy ourselves.

The course brought back to my mind a couple of articles that the Pre-School Learning Alliance commissioned me to write a few years back. I have now updated them and put them on my website for anyone who is interested. The first, Making reading fun for pre-school children, is for parents and carers of pre-school children, the second, Laying the foundations of reading, is for early years practitioners.

Alone in a Wide Wide Sea by Michael Morprurgo

2011-05-02T11:22:00.003+01:00

Recently I blogged about the film Oranges and Sunshine, which explores the UK’s enforced child migration scheme. Since then I discovered that the scheme also provided the inspiration for a novel by the wonderful Michael Morpurgo, Alone on a Wide Wide Sea. Expatriation from England as a young orphan has scarred Arthur Hobhouse’s life. A boat-builder in his mid-sixties, he looks back on the hardships, losses and abuses he experienced, and their impact on him: aimless drifting over many years, gambling and despair. Despite its unflinching depiction of childhood and adult suffering, the book is by no means all bleak. Arthur has also known true friendship, wonderful parenting from an unusual and mesmeric woman deep in the bush, a life-enhancing bond with boats and the sea, and finally, in middle age, redemption, with love and fatherhood. There is unexpected excitement too, as sixty years after her father’s trip from one side of the world to the other, his daughter Allie sails single-handedly to England in a yacht designed by him, determined to trace the sister he lost all that time ago.

This is a powerful and moving book.

Inside by J A Jarman

2011-04-28T12:42:00.011+01:00

I have just caught up with this great novel for older teenagers about a young offender, seventeen year-old Lee, who struggles with the brutal demands of life inside a young offenders institution. Julia Jarman has clearly done a huge amount of research, and her book provides a realistic and grim portrayal of the conflicting pressures that young people face in YOIs, from the system and from fellow inmates. Lee has to deal not only with a frightening environment and terrifying companions, but also with the emotional fallout of his crimes. He has to make tough decisions, decisions that expose him to danger, and put his mother at risk. Will his time inside make him a better person or a better criminal?

Inside was deservedly shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Award 2010. This is the trailer for it. And this is Jarman’s webpage about her books for teenagers.

Modern Parenting: Policy, Politics and the Illusion of Equality

2011-04-22T10:54:00.001+01:00

For anyone interested in parenting, you can watch a video of a fascinating debate held recently at the Royal Society for the Arts. The speakers were Rebecca Asher, journalist and author of Shattered: Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality, Jack O’Sullivan, who wrote the He's Going to have a Baby: the BBC Guide to Fatherhood and Adrienne Burgess, Head of Research at the Fatherhood Institute. Discussion focused on the extent to which parenthood drives both fathers and mothers into stereotyped gender roles, the reasons for this, the impact on parents, children and on society generally, and ideas for change.

Fix My Family

2011-04-19T14:27:00.001+01:00

Fix My Family was a fascinating documentary on BBC2 last night, about a hostel run by the charity Save the Family. The charity, founded by the remarkable Edna Speed, works to keep homelss families together, to prevent children from being taken into care, with all the dreadful outcomes that so often follow both for individuals and for society. The hostel instead takes whole families into care, and gives them support to re-build relationships and move away from damaging patterns of behaviour. Most of the parents they help have very few parenting skills, a result of the poor parenting they themselves received. All the people who work at the hostel have themselves experienced family breakdown, and have huge reserves of empathy for the individuals and families they are attempting to nurture. Controversially, Christianity and chapel services feature prominently in their thinking and their methods. The programme highlights the anguish that families in crisis experience, the immensely hard work required from all the individuals and agencies involved for change to happen, and the enormous value of that work in rescuing families on the brink of falling apart.

There is an interesting article by Samantha Callan here about the background to the programme and the implications of family breakdown.

Oranges and Sunshine

2011-04-18T19:34:00.001+01:00

I am very pleased to have had the chance to see Jim Lynch’s moving and illuminating debut film Oranges and Sunshine over the weekend. Emily Watson was brilliant as social worker Margaret Humphreys. Humphreys worked indefatigably to expose the scandal of the forced migration of thousands of children from the UK to Australia. With virtually no help she reunited families, and brought public awareness of a terrible miscarriage of justice that carried on for decades. The children were told their mothers had died, a blatant lie in a huge proportion of cases, and were promised a new life of oranges and sunshine. Instead they faced year after year of dreadful institutions, little or no education and hard labour. Many experienced systematic and horrific abuse. Humphreys’ attempts to get the UK and Australian governments and the numerous other agencies connected to the deportation and abuse to acknowledge the wrong met with one brick wall after another. The cover-ups went on for years, and Humphreys found herself the subject of media attack and terrifying threats. The toll on her mental health and her family life was appalling. The film shows us the odd scene of joyous family re-unification, but far more often we see Humphreys witnessing harrowing anguish as adults explore their lost childhoods. We find out that their parents too were cheated, told that their children had been happily adopted in the UK. A note at the end of the film tells us that even now, twenty-five years after she started to uncover the situation, Humphreys continues to try to bring relatives together, and that it was only in 2009 and 2010 that the UK and Australian governments finally issued apologies for the child migration scheme that devastated so many lives.

The Guardian carried an excellent article about Humphreys a couple of weeks ago.

I thought this film was terrific, and very important - definitely worth catching in the cinema if you can. For those of you who can’t, hopefully it will be available on DVD before too long.

The importance of prizes in children’s literature

2011-04-13T16:53:00.004+01:00

This was a fascinating seminar at the London Book Fair yesterday. Authors Beverley Naidoo and Philip Pullman, illustrator Piet Grobler and Guardian Children's Book Editor Julia Eccleshare all spoke eloquently about the value of children’s book awards, not just to the authors and illustrators at the receiving end, but also in terms of raising awareness of books and reading. For both Pullman and Naidoo, each of whom have won a plethora of prizes, the one that gave them the most pleasure and pride was the Carnegie Award. They talked of the prestige it holds because the judges are librarians, the people who know most about children’s books. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Children’s Laureateship were also highlighted as bestowing enormous honour, while the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award, the NASEN Award and the now defunct Other Award, which Naidoo won for Journey to Jo’burg, were praised for opening up access to important books that would otherwise be missed. In a note of caution, Eccleshare voiced a concern that because of commercial pressures, awards, together with the ‘bestseller’ tag, may effectively narrow the choices available to children and young people. Some of the very best books fall through the award net. A question from the floor about whether awards influence children’s choices provoked an interesting discussion. Philip Pullman suspected that the reading choices children and young people make themselves are not directly influenced, but that prizes have an impact on those he called the gatekeepers, i.e. librarians, teachers and parents. Eccleshare felt that prizes judged by children, as the Smarties Award was, do inform their choices. I wish that I had thought to ask about their views on local and regional children’s book awards, which I think are very powerful, and which I very much enjoy providing courses on.

Through the looking glass: online reading communities

2011-04-13T16:29:00.002+01:00

This was an extremely interesting discussion at the London Book Fair yesterday by a panel of authors and publishers: Keith Gray and M G Harris, plus Anna Rafferty, Managing Director of Penguin Digital and Alison Ruane, Marketing Director at Harper Collins. There was lots excitement and optimism about the opportunities social media provide for two-way communication with teenage audiences. Authors and publishers alike are seizing on digital technology to engage with existing readers and reach new ones (the latter more problematic than the former). From the inception of the Joshua Files, Harris envisaged online interaction. She and her publishers devised a blog, SMS messages, games and more. She is particularly pleased that readers themselves have initiated other online activity around the books and characters. Although hosted and devised by Penguin, Spinebreakers is run entirely by young people. A core management group come in once a month to make key decisions. The group is now also helping with commissioning: reading manuscripts, pointing out gaps in the market and so on. (Rafferty had never before realised the extent of teenage boys’ fascination with war.) Ruane aired the challenges now faced by publishers to stay relevant, to keep on top of the game and to create a 360° experience around their books. YouTube is now key to effective marketing to teenagers. [I can certainly understand the impact of YouTube in this respect. Watching the video for Flip by Martin Bedford, you can easily see how much more powerful this medium is than conventional promotional methods.] Gray talked about the excitement created by a new online story writing initiative started during his writer in residency with the Scottish Book Trust, though he voiced discomfort about the pressures on authors to have a high-profile interactive online presence, something he does not want. He urged everyone not only to think digital, but also to remember the value of reading groups in libraries, and the dangers posed by the loss of libraries and librarians.

Radio 4 programme about Asperger’s Syndrome

2011-04-06T08:59:00.001+01:00

Between Ourselves on Radio 4 yesterday featured a fascinating discussion between Olivia O’Leary and two men with Asperger’s Syndrome. It provided an excellent insight into the syndrome. Although the interviewees were adults, they reflected a great deal on the impact of Asperger’s on them as children and teenagers.

Both talked about the difficulties of social interaction. Unstructured environments with other children and young people were particularly problematic, whereas one-to-one communication with adults was fine. Because they stood out as being different, both were bullied and teased. One of them, Ben Delo, described his disproportionate responses, throwing a desk at a child who had taken his rubber for instance. He and Frederick Veal both also had obsessions, in Ben’s case computers, which had the advantage of being a route into working life and into friendships. Frederick remembered compulsively banging his head when he was still in his cot. One of his other childhood obsessions was spinning, which took him into a dream world. He could not understand other children not wanting to spin. Frederick also talked about his extreme sensitivity to sound as a child, and his compulsion to repeat things he heard.

Although his school recognised that he had learning problems - despite high intelligence he was unable to write even his name or to read until very late - Frederick was never given any kind of diagnosis as a child. It was not until his son showed developmental delay and was diagnosed with Asperger’s and dyspraxia that he found out the causes of his own difficulties. For both men, diagnosis was a huge relief. Ben is considerably younger than Frederick, and his diagnosis was much earlier, when he was eleven. He already had a strong inkling, since his skills in electronics enabled him to bug his parents’ phone and listen in to their conversations. As a result of his statement, Ben went to a school with a special unit for children with autism and Asperger’s and then studied maths and computer science at Oxford. Frederick too went to university, though very much later in life and only after overcoming immense hurdles. He described his terrible introduction to working life as a teenager and how his failure on his first and only day as a dishwasher led him into a lengthy crisis of confidence.

The inability to understand idioms and ambiguous language has been a feature throughout both men’s lives, though both have now learnt ways to cope with it. Frederick mentioned the difficulty his son has if asked to ‘keep his eyes peeled’. The phrase creates an image in his mind that is immensely painful to him.

Well worth listening to.

Plays about the criminal justice system

2011-04-02T11:02:00.000+01:00

I have just discovered that the Soho Theatre is hosting what sounds a fascinating and important show for anyone interested in youth offending and the criminal justice system more widely. It has received excellent reviews. It is only on until Saturday 9 April. This is what Guardian Extra says about it (if you are a member, they are offering two tickets for the price of one):

Clean Break is a theatre, education and new writing company that works with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system. After a successful run last year with Charged, they're back at London's Soho Theatre with RE-CHARGED. The show is a collection of three powerful plays, by three award-winning writers, that examine hidden stories of women in the criminal justice system:

Sam Holcroft's Dancing Bears is a vivid and vital look at girl gangs and life on the edge. Four teenage girls know what they crave and it's not drugs or cigarettes but loyalty.

Rebecca Lenkiewicz's That Almost Unnameable Lust is a poetic and tender portrayal of older women in prison, where imagination soars above lives trapped within the system.

Chloë Moss's Fatal Light veers between devastating and hopeful as it tracks a young woman on a journey that ends in death in custody.

Zadie Smith on the library of her teens

2011-03-31T11:44:00.002+01:00

My drive around the M25 to give a course in Kent yesterday was considerably enlivened by a fascinating piece by Zadie Smith on the Today programme. In an impassioned plea for libraries she spoke of the opportunities her that her local library in Willesden Green gave her in her teenage years. I worked in Brent Library Service - Willesden Green is part of Brent - in the period she was talking about, so her experiences had a very particular resonance for me.

Books and reading were clearly always an important part of Zadie’s life, and her family made full use of the library, though as a young teenager it was the café and cinema there that were the special draws for her and her friends. Oh, and the love prospects. I too have strong memories of Brent libraries crammed with teenagers who, like her, used the cover of ‘that all-purpose immigrant parent-silencing sentence “I’m going to the library”.’ But as GCSEs approached, the library became crucial for different reasons. ‘We were reading for our lives.’ She is in no doubt that without her local library, she would never have reached university, nor achieved all that she has. Other children, families, young people lacking wealth and advantages must not be denied the opportunities that libraries provide, she argues.

Unfortunately this insight into the powerful impact libraries can have on young people is not available on i-player.

Looked-after children and young people

2011-03-25T14:34:00.001Z

I recently felt very privileged to attend the final event of Following Footprints, a great partnership project run by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Natural History Museum. For the fourth year in a row, looked-after children, along with families and friends, made a series of visits to the Museum, going behind the scenes, handling some of the Museum’s collection, meeting scientists and researching a specimen of their choice. It was fantastic to witness their enthusiasm for their chosen specimens and their presentation skills in talking about them to a large audience, in addition to the incredible knowledge they had accumulated. All the children and young people I spoke to had done a phenomenal amount of research, questioning scientists, going online and using a wide range of books, some of them extremely learned. Museum staff told me how impressed they had been by their interest and dedication. One group had to be virtually ejected from the Museum at closing time. They had been there all day. I am so impressed with schemes like this that break down barriers to learning so successfully. I am quite sure some of those young people have brilliant careers waiting for them as science communicators.

Si Wharton, Education Support Officer for LAC in RBKC, and Dean Veall who played a huge part in setting up the project from the Museum end, presented a fascinating case study about it at a course on working with looked-after children that John Vincent and I gave in Bristol a couple of months ago. After a day of discussions about ways in which museums, libraries and other cultural and heritage organisations can play a significant role, it was really good to hear just how well such approaches can work in practice.

Wednesday’s Guardian Society had two interesting articles relating to looked-after children. ‘On home territory’ is a moving article about Neil Morrissey’s terrible experiences of growing up within the care system, and the documentary he has made to educate the public about being in care. He wants to de-stigmatise young people in care and improve the ways they are treated. ‘Care Home Kid’ is in two parts, going out on BBC2 on 28 and 31 March at 9 pm. Should be really worth watching.

In ‘Centre Stage’ Madeleine Bunting explores the value of the Scandinavian and German approach to residential care, social pedagogy, now being piloted in this country. Relationship building and mutual understanding are at the core of social pedagogy, with care workers trained to nurture children’s social and emotional development. The approach is leading to major improvements at a children’s home in Staffordshire visited by Bunting.

Working with young offenders

2011-03-24T17:09:00.001Z

It was fascinating to give a course on working with young offenders with John Vincent of The Network the other day. We explored the background to offending, the experiences that young offenders and their families may have had and the criminal justice system as it affects young people, before moving on to identifying the role that cultural heritage organisations can play and ways to break down barriers. It was only when I started to research the subject for the course that I realised just how much good practice in this field there is in museums, libraries and archives. Lots of great projects have totally changed young people’s attitudes to learning and to cultural organisations. Young offender institution staff and young offenders themselves talk of profound effects on confidence, self-esteem and behaviour – effects with the potential to radically improve life chances.

We were lucky enough to have a great group of delegates on the course, including two from YOIs, who all added a huge amount of valuable experience of working with hard-to-reach groups to the case studies we brought.

I was delighted to have been given permission to show an amazing animation created by a group of four young offenders over a 10 week course at Norwich Castle Museum. They chose to work on a group project re-interpreting the Castle Keep. The film is on YouTube, and well worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SNxvNcyCSo. Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service have been running projects with Norfolk Youth Offending Team for several years. You can see some more films made by young offenders involved here: http://lcjb.cjsonline.gov.uk/Norfolk/2803.html.

There are still a few weeks left to see some quite different artwork produced by young offenders, this time the product of partnership working between the National Gallery and Feltham YOI. Inside Art is at the Gallery until 1 May 2011: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/inside-art-2011. I found it very interesting not only to see the young people's paintings and sculpture, lots of it extremely impressive, but also to find out about the items from the Gallery’s collection that artists and Gallery staff used as a starting point.

The Six Book Challenge has been exploited to fabulous effect with young offenders, so it’s really good to hear that the reach and impact of Challenge activity in YOIs is to be extended: http://www.sixbookchallenge.org.uk/news/boost-for-challenge-for-young.

For anyone interested in the background to youth offending, Libby Brooks wrote a thought provoking article in the Guardian last week about the impact of England's worryingly low age of criminal responsibility. You can find it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/18/justice-10-age-criminal-responsibility.

2011-03-24T00:43:00.000Z

I’ve waited a while before entering the blogosphere, but have now realised that’s it’s the ideal way for me to alert people to a whole lot of interesting things they may have missed - events and conferences, research, websites and publications, ideas and more.

Everything I post about will relate to children and young people. Some posts will be of general interest, others more specific. Some will focus on children’s and young people’s books and reading, some on library provision, some on schools and education, some on museum issues. I am sure that family learning, special educational needs, teenagers and looked-after children will all feature regularly.

I am really looking forward to all the opportunities this new blog provides, and I hope you will find it useful.