Supporting the National Curriculum

Abstract

AbstractThe 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. T...