Beginning my journey to become a school librarian . . .

Teaching was the career path that seemed to be appealing to me at that moment in time. If I'm honest I think teaching was something I was considering because a lot of people expected that of me and it seemed like an obvious choice. I decided, however, that teaching wasn't something I was passionate enough about to spend another year studying; taking up a place on a course that could have gone to someone who truly wanted it. 

Librarianship, specifically school librarianship, on the other hand, was a constant in the back of my mind. I had been set on following the path into librarianship for sometime but in my near crisis I panicked and thought it would be too difficult. 

I can happily announce that I changed my mind and am currently three weeks into a graduate traineeship at a really good school. Having only been there for three weeks I am still finding my feet but I already know that working in a school library is the path I want/need to take. 

I am pulled towards work as a school librarian because I want to instill a love of reading in young people. I think there is nothing more rewarding than seeing students excited about reading. The correlation between the development of literacy skills and reading for pleasure is something I am keenly interested in and I believe that working in a school library will allow me to turn that interest into a vocation.

Working with teenagers is always going to be challenging but I surprised myself during the last two weeks of term. I didn't feel intimidated and had no problem with behaviour management and engaging with the students in general. I particularly enjoyed having the Year 7s in to play The Reading Game (a chance for them to find out what books the library has to offer) as it gave me the chance to talk about books and reading with a lot of students. 

Part of my role includes working on the school website and social media, which excites me. It means I will be adding another string to my bow, something which is always valuable. I may also have the chance to learn some basic coding and HTML, meaning that I can deepen my knowledge of web design.

I feel positive about the year ahead of me and I am excited that I have the chance to expand my experience on both the information side and school based side of being a librarian. I am hoping that I will be able to make my mark on the library is some way and I plan on working to my full potential. I am currently sorting through the journals the library has in stock, recording them and creating a hard copy folder of contents for the one used most by students, which is allowing me to gain experience with cataloguing and information management. There has also been a little mention of a library blog and the opportunity for students to write book reviews, a practical project which I hope I can take control of. 

The list of new things I have done over the past three weeks is huge so I won't write anymore for now. I hope to write update posts on here every so often, as a way to show my development throughout my time at the school. The next half term is going to be a busy. We have an Enrichment Day where we will see the whole of Year 9 in around an hour and a half (!!!), World War One projects, the Brilliant Book Award to prepare for, as well as trying to set up a new interactive site for students. 

I am quite looking forward to it!!