An Information Literacy Strategy for Wales

A couple of weeks ago (November 30^th- 1st December) I attended an invitation only conference in Wales on the theme of ‘An Information Literacy Strategy for Wales?’  which was held at the attractively situated if geographically inconvenient University of Wales conference centre at Gregynog House.

All LIS sectors and Welsh education were represented and I was particularly impressed by the willingness of all sectors to work together and learn from each other.

The initial presentations were devoted to reviewing the various sectors and the familiar theme emerged of pockets of excellent good practice which were not being supported by an overarching strategy. I spoke about the work of the Scottish Information Literacy Project and the lessons which Wales can learn from it. After dinner there were sectoral discussion groups and I joined the public librarians and was impressed by their grasp of the role which public libraries can play in informal learning and the good work they are already doing.

The following morning Gareth Evans from Caerphilly Public Library spoke about the work he has been doing with the Open College network which could well be replicated elsewhere.

The conference concluded with a list of action points which included:

• The production of an overview/vision statement (urgent)


• The development of a strategy and Framework


• Making cross sectoral/partnership contacts including outside the LIS sector


• Developing a National Forum for Information Literacy in Wales


• Appointing an Information Literacy Development Officer for Wales


• Accrediting library staff information literacy training skills


• Include IL concepts in teacher training


• School librarian posts should be a statutory responsibility


• Pursue media literacy issues through Ofcom

However if these objectives are to be achieved funding will be a key requirement

Building the Curriculum 4: Skills for learning, life and work

If you haven't read Curriculum for Excellence 4: Skills for learning, life and work then I would certainly recommend it.  I found it to be a very useful document which covers not just the school sector but everyone involved in lifelong learning.

It sets the context:

To meet the aspirations of Curriculum for Excellence, there will need to be changes in the way people think about curriculum, shifting the focus from a view of curriculum content as either ‘academic’ or ‘vocational’, towards curriculum as encompassing the whole range of knowledge, skills and attributes that contribute to the four capacities.

As we move forward, we need to build on and strengthen the development of skills across the curriculum. The focus will need to shift from the route to learning, and the settings where learning takes place, to the outcomes of learning, and the skills that young people need for their learning, life and work. (p4)

It sets the roles and responsibilities                                                               

All children and young people are entitled to opportunities to develop skills across the curriculum wherever and whenever they are learning. These skills are relevant from early years right through to the senior phase of learning and beyond, and into lifelong learning. All educators should therefore contribute to the development of these skills. (p.6)

It outlines who is involved in partnership working and their role:

Working with each other, and with other partners such as parents, employers, public bodies and voluntary organisations, can help schools and other learning providers to make the most of their contribution and recognise their part in promoting lifelong learning. In implementing the Experiences and Outcomes and planning for the senior phase of learning all partners, including learners themselves, will need to review the way they plan, reflect on and evaluate the development of skills for learning, life and work. (p.8)

On page 11 is a section titled Thinking skills across learning which to me looked very much like information literacy: 

It is important that all learners are given appropriate opportunities to develop their thinking skills. These skills can be developed across a range of contexts including through more practical or applied learning opportunities:

• Remembering involves such activities as recall, recognition or locating information


• Understanding might involve activities such as describing, explaining, summarising and translating


• Applying requires the learner to use or apply their knowledge and understanding in different contexts


• Analysing requires learners to break down information into component parts and search for relationships


• Evaluating involves making an informed judgement about something, for example an issue or method. Activities such as comparing, appraising, prioritising, rating or selecting, could involve learners in evaluating


• Creating happens when learners are required to generate new ideas and products through activities such as designing, creative writing, planning, reconstructing, inventing, formulating, producing and composing

Reflective questions on page 12:

• What range of learning activities could you use more effectively to help to develop young people’s higher order thinking skills?


• What kinds of questioning by both staff and learners might help to develop thinking skills?

 My answer to that would be - information literacy skills and school librarians / learning resource co-ordinators have the learning activities and questions / answers you are looking for.

Page 21 refers to placing learning within a practical context which the project has always found to be essential. In the context of early years there is reference to active learning which I heard a lot of at the early years sessions I attended at the Scottish Learning Festival.

Active learning is learning which engages and challenges children’s thinking using real and imaginary situations. It takes full advantage of the opportunities for learning presented by:

• spontaneous play


• planned, purposeful play


• investigating and exploring


• events and life experiences


• focused learning and teaching

Building the Curriculum 2 – Active Learning in the Early Years, provides further guidance on the use of active learning to support children’s development of the four capacities.

Active learning should continue beyond the early years.

 On page 27 it provides next steps for different groups / categories to consider  - Pre-school and teaching staff; Pre-school, school and college curriculum leaders; Local authority staff; Colleges, universities, employers and others who recruit young people; Local delivery partners (Skills Development Scotland, voluntary organisations, associated schools groups, private training providers and Learning Communities etc); Parent Councils; National Agencies and bodies (Skills Development Scotland, SQA, SCQF, Sector Skills Councils, employer bodies); The Scottish Government.

Under Pre-school, school and college curriculum leaders one of the points is -

How to develop and nurture a shared understanding and common language between partners.

I think this is important not just for this group of partners but the wider partners listed above.

Finally the document has some exemplification to support the development and delivery of skills through the CfE and it is worthwhile having a look at these. It has given me an idea of how we show the development of information literacy skills / critical literacy / thinking skills to CfE experiences and outcomes that are information literacy skills or information literacy related activities.  

Building the Curriculum 4: Skills for learning, life and work

Thanks to Carol Stewart for alerting me to

The new Building the Curriculum 4: skills for learning, life and work  policy guidance is now available online.

The publication is part of a series of Building the Curriculum papers and is intended to further support planning, design and delivery of the curriculum in pre-school centres, schools and colleges. It sets out skills for learning, life and work in Curriculum for Excellence and shows how they are embedded in the experiences and outcomes and the senior phase.

I'm just back from a week's holiday so haven't had a chance to read it yet plus I've still to read the Early Years Framework. from the size of my reading pile I'll need a week or two off just to catch up / get on top of it.

Edinburgh Prison Library Service

For anyone interested in the work Kate King is doing at Edinburgh Prison Libraries Edinburgh City Libraries has a blog called Tales of One City  where progress regarding the prison library service is recorded.

Thanks to Cathy Kearney for this bit of information.

Meeting etc

A lot going on recently and I have been at Brighton University, making my last visit as an external examiner so a bit behind on writing up. We have been engaged on an extensive programme of meetings on workplace information literacy issues with a view to devising a programme of action.

On Monday 24^th November we were in Inverclyde (reported by Christine) and on Tuesday 25^th we attended a meeting of the Everyday Skills Committee of the Scottish Trades Unions Congress to report on our work and explain what IL is. Our presentation was well received by the Union Learning Representatives who are members of this committee. (Union learning reps are there to help the members / staff in their organisations develop the skills they require everyday in the workplace with a particular focus on literacy and numeracy). The representatives from the Fire Brigade’s Union had recently completed a survey of the level of staff skills in order to develop suitable training courses and were particularly interested in knowing what IL courses were available.  The presentation illustrated the point which we have found to be true elsewhere – IL  is widely understood as long as it is presented  in the context of the knowledge, skills, experience and learning needs of the group you are targeting which means that the message needs to tailored to whoever you happen to be speaking to at the time. 

Om Wednesday 26^th  we had a meeting of the Project Advisory Group where inevitably much of the discussion revolved around the long term future of the Project and how it can be funded. We are currently funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation until the end of September 2009 so now is the time to think about new funding. Thursday 27^th saw us in Edinburgh talking to the Learning Policy and Strategy Directorate of the Scottish Funding Council to raise awareness of the importance of IL in the skills agenda and especially as an employability and lifelong learning skill.

Back in Edinburgh again on Friday 28^th, to attend the SLIC FE conference, at the invitation of Catherine Kearney, Assistant Director of SLIC to whom, Many Thanks. We participated in a JISC sponsored discussion on Libraries of the future after which Christine and I were interviewed by Philip Pothen, the JISC Press and PR manager. The interview is to appear as a podcast and I will post the URL when it becomes available.  I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and I have been trying to raise awareness of IL as a necessary workplace skill with the help of their Outreach officer as education and skills is an RSA priority.  There is a piece in the current RSA Scotland newsletter which is on their website although there seems to be a problem with the link just now.

While in Brighton on Monday 1^st December I had a meeting with Martin de Saulles, a member of the Social Informatics Research Unit who is interested in IL in small to medium sized enterprises and we identified areas of common interest.

There are a couple more meetings to go before we collapse exhausted over the Christmas turkey but the message is already becoming clear.  Increasingly the people we speak to are asking us about content of IL training programmes and how they might be delivered.  Although IL training obviously has generic components training packages will need to focus on particular requirements.  A new research question it seems.