A Day of Teamwork and Success for Our Library Helpers
At Eltham College we are blessed to have a team of pupil library helpers who staff the counter at break and lunchtimes: issuing and returning books, selling stationery, shelving returned books and helping to prepare new books. This year we were able to take six of them to the annual Pupil Library Assistant Training Day, held at The Elmgreen School and organised by their librarian on behalf of CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals). Our group worked together brilliantly as a team, listening well, discussing and answering questions about their role – including lots of customer-service-type conundrums specific to being a pupil helper. They also rose to the challenge of creating a marketing poster for the randomised book they had been given. They were determined to be winners, and indeed they were, so they were each able to select a novel as a prize. The day finished with a talk from author Sufiya Ahmed about her career in Parliament and her historical fiction books, many of which we have available in the library. When we came back to school, we had a short meeting with the whole library team, and those who had been on the trip were able to feed back some of what they had learnt to the rest of the helpers, who we hope will be able to go next year.
