Breaking Down Barriers in School Libraries: A Conversation with Mary-Rose Grieve

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Welcome to Engaging and Empowering School Libraries podcast.
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This podcast is dedicated to raising the profile of school libraries by exploring
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topics that are shaping education and teaching today.
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Whether it's innovative learning strategies, the role of technology,
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or collaboration between teachers and librarians, we're here to spark conversation
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and share ideas that make a difference.
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At the heart of Engaging and Empowering School Libraries is my training membership.
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Is designed to inspire and motivate school librarians to be 10% braver in their
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roles, providing a supportive community where you can grow your confidence,
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share experiences and develop new skills.
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If you're looking to connect with like-minded professionals and take your school
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library to the next level, visit elizabethahutchinson.com to find out more about
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joining my membership program.
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Now let's dive into today's episode. So I'm delighted to be joined today by
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Mary Rose from Heartland International School in Dubai.
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Welcome Mary Rose, glad to have you with me. Would you like to introduce yourself please? I will.
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Thank you very much for having me. It's lovely to be here Elizabeth.
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So my name is Mary Rose Greve. I've
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been the librarian at Heartland International since it opened in 2015.
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We now have a primary and secondary staff library
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but I'm also a member of the national committee of the school
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libraries group CILIP school libraries group in the UK and thanks to that I'm
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co-chair of the great school libraries campaign with the CEO of the school library
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association and I also sit on the newly formed association of school librarians in Dubai,
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I run an OU teachers reading group here and have done for the last eight years.
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And I was once upon a time in 2019, the school library, UAE school librarian of the year.
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Yes. So, I mean, it was actually thanks to all of that, that all the rest of
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it, that all the rest of it came.
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So I'm very, I'm very grateful for that.
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Yeah. I'm a busy lady. So I am very grateful that you are able to come and join
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me during March for these really quick, short chats.
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So I just want to let listeners know what we're going to do is that...
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Mary Rose and I are going to focus our discussions on some of the real challenges
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for school librarians in the UK and across the world, including funding and
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resources, professional registration and status, workload and unrealistic expectations,
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impact on students and future of school libraries.
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And I'm sure that we can think of more as we go along, but hopefully you get the idea.
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And these will be short 15 minute episodes, so we hope you'll find it interesting.
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But as always, we'd love to hear from you, our listeners.
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So if you have something you think we should be discussing then please do get
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in touch so this first one we're going to look at or talk about the state of
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the school libraries in the UK so let's be honest Mary Rose how bad is it?
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Well I mean I think an awful lot of people would say that it could definitely
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be better yeah i you know we don't want to be all doom and gloom about this,
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but we all know that there's a huge there's
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a huge way to go before the status the
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value of school librarians is recognized in the
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way that i think it should be i mean
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as you probably know the great school libraries campaign
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has done two bits of research into finding out because we
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don't even know how many school libraries there are in the UK especially so we
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have researched into that and they are they do
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seem to be on the decline and you
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know we all well librarians know
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how important librarians and libraries are to schools yeah I think I think what's
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less obvious and less and I think it is obvious that that there are fewer people
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in the education sector as a whole you understand exactly how important it is
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to have a school library and a librarian.
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And I think, you know,
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Probably the question has been asked in the UK government recently about school libraries.
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And the response is always back. It comes back that it's up to the senior leadership
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team as to whether they want to fund one or not.
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That's really difficult if the person who's
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running the school doesn't fully understand
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the value of what a school library and librarian can bring to the education
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process isn't it it's it's you know and of course i mean you know there's lots
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of reasons for that but i think for such a long time you know all of those school
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leaders and all of those teachers are a product of
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the education system in which they're now working that education system has never put.
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The the has never valued the idea of
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research and when i say valued
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i think probably at this point it's about whether it's
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recognized in an exam states in an exam system um
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and so and so we
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i think everybody and we know it
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because so many people are so keen to
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speak up about how important school libraries are we all know that
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children need to have an access to books and people
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are i think really shocked that they
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don't in a school because it's apparently obvious there is an assumption isn't
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there that every school has a library yeah of course you know i mean at the
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very basic level children are learning to read and write and you can't learn
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to read and write unless you've got books in front of you so of course they're
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therefore one ought to have a library.
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However, when you then go a little bit deeper into that, you know,
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a library is not just a room full of books in it. It needs to have a librarian working in it.
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And it's at that point that I think things start getting tricky because for
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so long, librarians have been under school librarians.
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I think the point is that there's a little bit of a difference between a public
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librarian and a school librarian, you know, I think what they bring to their role is very different.
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And well-being and reading for pleasure are a hugely important part of their
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job, but there is also just, I would say, equal weighting, just as important
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part of teaching and learning.
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And I think that's where we are fighting, well not fighting,
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but where we're fighting to be heard because we're not valued in that way and
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we're not understood in that way.
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But the job that we do, I don't think people can see how important it is in
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the curriculum and teaching and learning. So do you think it's getting worse now?
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Well, certainly at the moment, I think it is. But, you know,
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that's all to do with funding, isn't it?
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And as all kinds of other things are competing for an increasingly smaller amount
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of money, there is, I think it probably is getting worse.
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But that's not to say we can't make it better. We can't make a difference.
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We absolutely can. That's why school librarians are such a valuable source.
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We should be so good at telling people what we can bring to the party and how
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children can benefit from having a school library.
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I think that that was evident in the inaugural fossil symposium that we had
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the other day. you know so many people coming together to bring.
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Understanding of what the value
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of the school librarian and and especially
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through inquiry and it it just fascinates me that there is there are really
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good pockets of educational excellence going on in schools that value their
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school librarian and and you know
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I'm I'm really proud that we actually managed to achieve
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that but you know I think I think
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it's giving voices to librarians that
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sit in the library and feel that there's there's nothing more for them and I
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and I strongly believe that actually if we can inspire and engage and empower
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them to have a voice I think that that's the starting point isn't it yeah yeah I absolutely And I mean,
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what's interesting about,
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about listening to those librarians and the talks that happened at the symposium
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was how many different ways librarians are impacting the school in which they work.
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That they're almost there's a sort of we're not one size fits all,
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there isn't a standard school librarian who
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does this actually our skills can
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shift and change according to the environment that
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we're in and we can bring knowledge skills
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experience wisdom understanding about particular areas of librarianship and
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and learning and curriculum development in school and it all depends on how
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schools are set up and how they run themselves and what they value because every
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school has its own character and its own idea of what it wants
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do its own curriculum and being able to adapt to that,
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but also to drive change.
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I really like the idea of librarians being just generally slightly,
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well, what do I want to say? Gentle agitators.
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Just challenging and pushing boundaries because surely that is the point of school.
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We're wanting to create children who are questioning and curious and thinking
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critically about what they're told.
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And as adults, we need to model that. And that's what librarians do.
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We're not just gatekeepers, but we're able to question things deeply ourselves and to.
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Value and understand, and to question our colleagues and to challenge them a
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bit and to be challenged and to have the resources open for people to be able
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to feed their curiosity and questioning.
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That's what we want, isn't it? So do you think, though, that for a librarian
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who arrives in a school with no background particularly in school librarianship...
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You know, we're going to talk later on about the need for professional development,
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but that'll be in a different podcast.
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But does there have to be, or can there be, if every school is different,
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should there be some kind of guidelines that is a starting point for everybody?
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Oh, absolutely. And I think as much, those guidelines are as much for the rest
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of the staff as they are for the librarian.
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That you know there are certain that
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there's a professional standard to which
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we should be adhering and and
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not not i mean us as librarians should be adhering but also to help the senior
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leadership team middle leaders hr whoever it is understand how to get the best
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out of their librarian and what to expect them to be able to do or not.
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So, you know, so that is absolutely crucial. Otherwise,
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you know, obviously there are some important and basic parts of our job,
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but to which how much of an extent those are used depends, I think,
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perhaps on the school that you're in.
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But there certainly needs to be a set of professional standards.
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So what we're probably talking about then is the IFLA School Library Guidelines.
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In all honesty, because it's an international document.
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But however, saying that, there's certainly the need for local,
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national, and even school guidelines that come from it.
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So it's really interesting, isn't it, that we need, because I think there are
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the CILIP school library guidelines as well, aren't they?
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And they should be linked to the IFLA school library guidelines
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so we're not all making it up as we go along we are we
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have a professional standard our professional standard is
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is based on that international work
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but then we're going to adapt it for our level if we can engage schools in those
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kind of conversations with an understanding that you know we are not making
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it up as we go along although each school each librarian,
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each group of teachers, each group of students is different and have different
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needs, we have a professional standing.
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And I think that that's a really important, significant point to,
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you know, maybe finish this first episode on, is that, you know, how do we make sure that.
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Those people that are going to be making
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the decisions about whether they have a school librarian or not
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actually understand what the
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value is and and maybe that's that's
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the the IFLA school library guidelines to start with
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and then the CILIP school library guidelines as a
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UK alternative yeah I I think I
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I absolutely agree and I I mean that the
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the IFLA school library guidelines are as you
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say the gold standard and and each nation
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adapts them to to fit which is where
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CILIP comes in and and I I do think
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those are use incredibly useful
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not just for librarians but for also everyone
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in the educational sector to be able to understand the
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you know what this brilliant person that
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they have in their library and how
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they could empower them to do some brilliant
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things because at the end of the day what's important is
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what we how well we do for these children
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and how successful they are when they leave school and that's
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what we're all here for and that's what those guidelines help absolutely well
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thanks for joining me today Mary Rose anything that we've talked about will
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be in the show notes below and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss our
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next conversation thanks very much for listening thank you.