Education
School Experience Collection (Level 2 of the Library)
If you are training to teach, you can use the School Experience Collection: books and teaching materials for use with primary and secondary pupils. The collection has been assembled for over 40 years and includes some items of historical interest. Some of the collection is used to support modules on children’s literature, including a collection of picture books.
If you are going on placement, you will need to be able to find materials to take with you to support your teaching and also the school which may not have a library.
The aims of this guide are:
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to help you become more effective in finding materials for school experience
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to be aware of what other material in the library can support school experience
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to find cross curricular resources for school experience
The Collection Includes:
Junior Fiction
Picture Books
Visual Teaching Aids
Non-Fiction Topic Books
Project Boxes
How find items in the School Experience Collection on Primo
Go to Primo and change "Quick Search" to "School Experience Collection" to search the materials in this collection only:
How to use the School Experience Collection
A simplified version of the Dewey classification system is used for the School Experience Collection. It helps you to find items on the shelves and is the system often used in school libraries.
All of the items in the School Experience Collection have a J before the number representing the Junior Collection
Examples of the Junior Dewey Classification
| J + three numbers | Non Fiction e.g. J 398 Myths and Legends or J 821 Poetry Anthologies or J 822 Drama |
| J + three letters | Fiction The three letters are the first three letters of the author’s surname e.g. J PAR |
| J OS | Oversize Non Fiction (including big books) |
| JPB | Big Books Fiction |
| JP | picture books (fiction) |
| JPL | dual language/foreign language picture books |
Other resources for lesson plans and classroom activities
- InterED This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Lesson plan ideas, news, reports and features for teachers and education professionals working in early years, primary and secondary education.
Helping children to be information literate
By using the collection while on placement, you can help children with their information literacy skills. You can ask questions before starting a topic with a class:
What shall we find out?
Where can we find information?
What resources shall we use?
Shall we make notes?
How shall we present our results?
These are skills that will help children to develop some early critical thinking skills. The UK's professional association for libraries (CILIP) has developed definitions, framework and a body of work on what it is to be information literate in our lives, studies and future careers. They also run campaigns on children and school libraries e.g. Great School Libraries.