WIS Prospectus 2012 - West Island School New Portal

West Island School
LIBRARY
”No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or
surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.” Confucius
A major challenge for the information age school is to educate students for living
and learning in an information rich environment. A substantial body of research has
emerged in the last fifteen years that demonstrates an important and positive relationship
between the presence of a good school library and increased student achievement.
Effective libraries, like ours at West Island School, enable students to explore content
deeply, pursue their own academic interests, and engage in inquiry.
The West Island School Library supports student learning and inquiry by providing access
to information resources, and by fostering the knowledge and critical skills required to
become ‘Information Literate’ in order to discover and use these resources effectively.
Explicit and systematic information literacy lessons are taught by the teacher librarian.
Reading to support the curriculum, as well as reading for pleasure are encouraged
by the West Island School Library. Literacy is promoted by providing a broad range of
fiction and non-fiction materials, both contemporary and classic, and through a rolling
programme of new stock acquisitions which recognizes the needs of both the reluctant
and the vociferous reader by providing a wide choice of genre.
Gone are the days when libraries were thought of as a collection of dusty old books.
Today they are alive and vibrant places with a variety of effective and efficient methods
of data collection, with the world at students’ fingertips.
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