Wednesday, 15 February 2012 13:25

2012 is the International Year of Reading so what an opportune time for me to start a new position as Head of Primary and Librarian. I am an experienced early childhood and primary school teacher but my passion has always been literature. I first joined a public library when I was four years old – yes it was last century! – and remember having to take a reading test before I could borrow the collection of Grimm’s Fairy Tales which I was desperate to borrow. I still read most nights before I go to sleep and these days a lot of the time they are ebooks on my ipad!

The Library Resource Centre at Shoalhaven Anglican School is physically centrally located so that all students have easy access and are welcome to visit before and after school and during lunchtime. We have many avid readers who seem to read books almost faster than we can process them. All classes in the Junior School have a weekly lesson in the library where I read to them and teach the skills necessary for them to access information and discern the sources of that information. They are also rapidly learning how to navigate the Dewey system and use the computers to find a particular resource they need. Year 1 have joined the international Flat Stanley Project. Flat Stanley is a character created by Jeff Brown. Unfortunately Stanley was found by his family one morning squashed flat in bed. Apart from being flat he was fine and he soon found there were many advantages to being flat including being able to be posted through the mail to visit friends and relatives. The project involves the students making a flat Stanley and posting it off to a student in another school. At the moment we have requests from Canada and England but eventually all the Stanleys should be experiencing adventures and their new owners sharing these with their creators.

For my birthday my husband bought be a Reading Chair which has already been put to good use. Parents or other friends of the school are warmly invited to come in, get comfy and share a book with our students at lunchtime. We are also undertaking to break the current Guiness Book of Records for continuous story reading. If there are any shift workers who would be willing to help out for an hour or so on a regular basis I would love to hear from them. We would Skype the overnight sessions to students overseas.

How privileged I am to have such a wonderful job in such a great community!

Happy Reading!

Denise Mewett