Parent Brochure [pdf] - Quarry Bay School

Quarry Bay School
So what do the children do?
Obviously lessons are differentiated.
Each year group work on a variety of
skills. A typical week might see Year 1
students organising information on
simple sorting diagrams, Year 3 using
our online catalogue to locate materials
in the Learning Centre whilst Year 5
use BubblUs to help define areas of
interest and their initial ideas. Plans
are shared with the class teachers ensuring
that work in the Learning Centre
supports class work. We are well
equipped in terms of technology, enabling
us to use computers when they
will enhance learning and teaching.
How can parents support?
These days, there are many, many sources
of information. Children are bombarded by
messages from several media and online
sources, books, friends, and people at
school. An important step in developing
information literacy is learning to evaluate
the source of information, especially for
online information. It's helpful to help your
child consider some of the following:
Who is the author of the information?
What do we know about the author or
organization? Is that person an expert?
Is that organization respected by others?
Why was this information written? Is
the author trying to persuade you to
buy something?
O r g a n iz a t io n
Does the information present fact or
opinion?
Is the information recent? When was it
published?
Parents and teachers can help children
develop research and information literacy
by sharing their love of learning. Encourage
their curiosity about the world and desire to
find out more. At the same time, help them
become wise consumers of the information
they find. These are skills that will last a
lifetime.
Information in this leaflet based on work from
http://librarywales.org and http://www.colorincolorado.org
Information
Literacy: Benefits
for schools
“Information literacy is knowing
when and why you need
information, where to find it and
how to evaluate, use and
communicate it in an ethical
manner.”
CLIP, Information Literacy.
Definition (2004)
QBS; Empowering learners to make a
difference.

Supporting independent learning
Information of varying quality is
more abundant than in previous
generations. Children are faced
with many information challenges
as they grow up and mature. The
education we provide must provide
them with the skills to be able to
navigate the constantly developing information
landscape.
Information literacy fosters skills required for
researching, evaluating and putting information
into context which is essential for independent life
long learners.
It has been demonstrated that when librarians
and teachers work together, students achieve
higher levels of literacy, reading learning,
problem solving and information and
communication technology skills.
(IFLA/UNESCO, School Library Manifesto, 2006)
Literacy Skills
Information literacy reinforces both reading and writing
skills.
Reading skills are practiced in a task orientated
way when seeking information
Writing skills are reinforced when recording
and presenting.
As students develop the skills to use the library, information
resources and locate information, they are
encouraged to practice reading in context.
Curriculum
At QBS we base our information curriculum on
several highly regarded documents.; The Information
Fluency Continuum written by New York District
Libraries and the National Information Literacy
Framework, Scotland. These documents have been
combined and provide us with a clear framework and
a set of bench marks against which to measure
progress.
These documents can be found at; http://
schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/27A1E84E-65EB-
4A54-80DF-51E28D34BF4F/0/
InformationFluencyContinuum.pdf and http://
caledonianblogs.net/nilfs/framework-levels/
schools/
Our children are encouraged to use the
Information Process Cycle to structure their
research. This, and tools to support its use, can
be found on our Qoodle site
For further information on each year levels
information literacy benchmarks please contact
the Learning Centre and we will be more than
happy to share them with you. .
Quarry Bay School