Supporting the National Curriculum: English Secondary School Libraries During a Period of Transition

Abstract

The National Curriculum for England and Wales, implemented following the 1988 Education Reform Act, has had a profound impact on learning resource needs in schools. Whereas in many other countries the centralization of decision making over the content and delivery, of the curriculum is well established, the education system in the U.K. has, until recently, been characterized by fragmentation and a lack of central political direction. Teachers and librarians in the U.K. had previously worked within a culture which allowed considerable autonomy, with school library services provided by the local education authority as an additional resource for schools. School librarians are now being faced with the need to provide for a centrally directed curriculum, and to support specific information skills teaching in schools, increasingly without the support of a school library service, the service provided by public libraries as agents of the local education authority, to supplement libraries within schools. The use of information technology, has also become more significant. A British Library funded project, undertaken at Loughborough University's Department of Information and Library, Studies, has investigated the ways in which English secondary, school libraries are meeting these new challenges as the U.K. education system undergoes profound cultural and organizational change. The management of change within school libraries was a major task, and it was here that strategies for planning mirrored those being undertaken in the schools as a whole. Applying the principles of school development planning to the library emerged as a major feature of effective school libraries.