COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, January 14, 2008
MOTION NO. 2
MOTION: Councillor R. Dowds
That this County Council agrees to establish a 'Right to Read' campaign with the following features:
(a) Opening homework clubs.
(b) Revising housing policy to encourage learning in the home.
(c) Initiating empowering literacy courses.
(d) Establishing learning zones in libraries.
REPORT:
The Libraries Department fully supports the “Right to Read” campaign.
a) Homework clubs.
In March this year the libraries linked up with a School completion programme in the Whitechurch area. This is a community initiative organised by youth workers based in the area. It follows children in Scoil Mhuire. They have a homework club, and a school aftercare service. They support children at risk in providing a safe place for them to do their homework. Tying two strands of the Right to Read initiative the libraries have increased the opening hours in Whitechurch to accommodate this scheme as well as arranging school visits from Scoil Mhuire.
The Libraries have set up connections with St Paul’s SNS homework club in Greenhills. The Libraries are going to lend books to the club. If this goes well we can link up with more schemes of this kind.
The position in our other libraries is as follows:
Clondalkin Library cater for around 12 children who regularly come in to do their homework between 2.45 and 4.30. An area is provided for them and members of staff are available to answer any queries about the homework
Castletymon Library
Around 20 children do their homework in Castletymon Library. They also get help from the staff with their school projects.
Ballyroan Library
Around 10 children regularly do their homework in the library on an informal basis.
Lucan Library
Every day a group of 4 children to do their homework in the library. They stay for around an hour each day
The libraries latest project in this area is a Family literacy initiative in conjunction with Collinstown Park Community College. There will be a number of projects contained in this but of interest here is the setting up a homework venue for parents and children to come to for one afternoon a week over a 6 week period. It is also planned that to encourage continuing reading in the home, each family will be supplied with a “reading shelf” for their home. This will be custom made to suit the individual families. For instance where there are younger siblings, a couple of board books will be included. To encourage fathers to participate, where appropriate, a sports book, etc will be included in the pack. A reference book and a popular novel will be included in all packs.
The Council currently supports the ‘Get Ahead’ homework club in Neilstown.
This project will shortly be moving in to the new community facility at Weaver’s Row, Neilstown.
b) Housing
In the design and allocation of social housing every effort is made to ensure that family living requirements, including learning, are facilitated.
The Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government’s Guidelines on ‘Sustainable Urban Housing: Design Standards for New Apartments’ (September 2007) state that “children’s requirements for study space also need to be considered at the design stage (and that) the second bedroom in a two-bedroom unit should be of a sufficient size and shape to be also used for study purposes”. These Guidelines are being implemented by the Council’s Planning Department and developers are required to demonstrate compliance with them in relation to areas for study purposes.
c) Initiating Empowering Literacy Courses
The Libraries are targeting early intervention schemes to encourage reading.
This year we launched a scheme entitled “Books for Tots” Every pre-school child who registered to join the library was given their first book to keep.
Books were selected that were suitable for pre-school children. Letters were sent to Crèche Managers and to parents.
Each branch manager contacted the crèches in their catchment area.
The crèche managers were asked to give each child an envelope containing the letter to the parent and two library application forms, one for the child and one for the adult. As each child registered for their library ticket they were presented with one book to keep. This continued throughout the week 1st to 8th March and again for Library Ireland week. Effectively the campaign will last for as long as the books do.
The “Books for Tots” scheme follows on from the “Begin with Books” scheme that we initiated last year. The scheme involved lending five picture books for three months to children up to the age of two.
The Libraries have set up links with the Clover Project in Clondalkin. The project’s aims are to improve the school readiness of children starting primary school, to involve parents in their child’s learning from an early age and to stimulate reading in the home. This equates with the aims of the Right to Read campaign. The libraries supply the project with books.
The Schools Library Service have classroom novel sets that are leant to schools for three months. The sets consist of 30 copies of a novel
The following initiatives are already in place in South Dublin Libraries:
· Opening the Book Collections. These collections of books for children have been placed in all our libraries since 2002. They comprise quality books on different themes and are mainly aimed at the 9 – 11 year olds. Specific collections for teenagers were also purchased. These books are not necessarily curriculum related but are designed to facilitate reading for pleasure and ease of selection for the children.
· Multicultural Collections. Books of a multicultural nature have been purchased and placed in all our branch libraries. The collections include dual-language titles, information books on religions, cultures and countries, storybooks from many different cultures and picture books featuring many different nationalities. Each of the 99 primary schools in the county has also been given a collection of multicultural books for the past three years as part of their school allocation from the School Library Service.
· Boys Club. This is a collection of books developed by the School Library Service and made available to all primary school teachers. It contains books of particular interest to boys – many information books, sports titles etc.
· Traveller Collection. The Schools Library Service has assembled a collection of material particularly suited to the needs of traveller children. This material was sourced mainly in the UK and is proving extremely popular with teachers.
· Begin with Books. Reading to babies and young children gives them an early love of books and encourages them to become lifelong readers. Begin with Books is a kit of five picture books designed for children from birth to two years of age. The kit is available for borrowing for a three-month period from any of our libraries.
There are active mother and toddlers groups in our library branches.
d) Establishing Learning Zones
Dublin City Libraries have established Learning Zones recently. They are defined as a child friendly space supported by specially chosen reading and reference materials together with access to educational websites and computer software. South Dublin County Libraries supply all of these ingredients in our branch libraries. There are children’s libraries in our branches where the material is specially chosen using the expertise of the staff. Computers are provided in each branch and there are software programmes for children as well as access to databases such as Britannica Junior and Britannica Student.