UK School Library Commission report

From the UK Literacy Trust website :

School libraries are too often a wasted resource.

Many school libraries are under-utilised resources that do not fulfil their potential to improve literacy levels and support pupil learning and attainment.

This is a key finding of the School Library Commission, chaired by Baroness Estelle Morris, and jointly established by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and independent charity the National Literacy Trust.

The Commission’s report, School Libraries: A plan for improvement finds that while school libraries have a unique role in raising pupils’ literacy levels, promoting reading for pleasure and improving their access to knowledge, in many schools the library is a wasted resource because it is poorly embedded in the infrastructure of the school and absent from school development plans. Read more

Click here for a copy of the full report :
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0000/5718/School_Libraries_A_Plan_for_Improvement.pdf

and here is an interview with the Commission's Chair.

In the conclusion the report says :

"In its call for evidence the Commission asked the question “is there any other service or partnership which can deliver the outcomes of a school library?”
In neither the evidence supplied nor the research examined could the Commissioners find any evidence that the school libraries role could be delivered in another way.

An effective school library acting as a powerhouse of learning and reading within a school is a unique resource. Our vision of a renewed school library system in the nation’s schools is fundamentally about realising the potential of every child by exciting the latent reader and learner in all."