I often sit down to write up my day of an evening, only to find that I have no idea what I actually did all day. I’ve been busy, but can I point to anything concrete?
Well, I had no classes this morning, and only one this afternoon. How to make best use of such luxury? Stock maintenance, development plan, website, press, blog, tidying, shelving? Given the number of things needing done, I know if I don’t plan it out, it will be frittered away again.
First item is obvious: I need to clear all the deliveries that have magically appeared. The suppliers have delivered some books in hardback which is a pain; I’ve found our pupils don’t like fiction hardbacks because they’re too heavy. Many of these books are linked to the shortlist of our local book award, and I’m surprised by some of the more boring sounding blurbs and dull covers. There are lots of books here that at first glance I wouldn’t have selected for my shelves. This is the first time I’ve been involved with the awards to this extent and I’m not especially happy about putting my faith (and my budget) in someone else’s hands.
On the other hand, I’m as guilty of judging books by their covers as anyone else. Maybe I should just read them…
I’ve also bought a couple of new Polish dictionaries, which look a lot better than the doorstep I’ve been borrowing. And luckily, the Polish group meets in the LRC after school tonight so I could let the Polish kids know I’ve bought them. Quietly pleased that they were being used by the group two minutes later.
Part of the development plan for the last few years has been a rolling programme of stock maintenance, not just adding and withdrawing resources, but taking advantage of the LMS’s functions to help pupils find materials more easily through keywords in natural language, images and a bit of a blurb on each item. I’d also started using a Dymo labelling system to colour code the fiction and non-fiction, but there are still some books with old labels. And this also allows me to update the Dewey class numbers to get rid of the longer codes that kids don’t get.
Not the most spellbinding of tasks, but it helps the pupils find what they want. But all these minor tasks take a long time. I’ve tried to clear one box a week and failed miserably. I’ve got a box with a bunch of art books, another area that needs reclassification, but that would be too time-intensive right now.
I’m also trying to decide if a couple of fiction books match Level A or Level B, when it occurs that 5-14 levels A-F are about to vanish to be replaced by Levels 1-3 of the Curriculum for Excellence. Will this mean relabelling all the colour coded fiction? If so, which colours do we keep and should we start with the new colour system as we label new books and the maintenance books? And I wonder how the time runs away.
