It is a real pleasure to welcome Amy McKay, our very own Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal co-ordinator to the blog to discuss the transition project she runs at Corby Business Academy, where she is school librarian.  Amy was voted School Librarian of the Year in 2016 and together with her colleague Christina Mangin was awarded the Praise and Raise trophy in the Renaissance awards.


Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I’ve been a school librarian for the first fifteen years of my career.  Alongside that, I am the National Co-ordinator of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals.  The thing I love most about my job is working with young people and their honesty and openness.  There is nothing more satisfying that being able to match someone up with the right book, especially when it’s a student who wouldn’t normally have read, it’s a chance to make a difference.

You’ve recently been planning a transition project, what makes this such an important stage for children’s reading?

It’s a key time in general, it can be both scary and exciting.  Moving up to year seven is a time of great change so anything that anyone can do in the school to support that is really important.  The library can play a key role in support offering an environment that is open, warm and welcoming.  We can be a safe haven for them, with staff they know and with regard to reading in general.  Reading for pleasure can drop off when children are not in school and that easily results in dips in literacy.  Anything we can do to encourage them to keep reading is really important.  Transition gives an opportunity to establish ourselves as a reading school and to be able to provide guidance and to make it fun and enjoyable rather than a chore!

How long have you been running your transition project and what does it involve?

This is the sixth year of running the project in its current form.  In a normal year it entails all incoming year six students receiving a copy of the same book to read over the summer holiday and receiving a special activity sheet we put together.  We try to make all of the activities fun: building a den outside, telling us about horrible food that they’ve eaten, we design the activities so that through taking part, they tell us a bit about themselves and bring that in to school. 

The book is used in school in the early part of the term and during the latter part of that first term the author comes to give a talk and signs books.  Getting the books to the students is one of the most important elements of the project, it gives a chance for us to introduce ourselves, for them to become familiar with us.  By telling them a bit about ourselves, we become familiar and friendly faces they seek out. 

We work with 25 to 30 primary schools to arrange visits with those students who are attending Corby Business Academy.  It takes a lot of planning, but it is a high point.  It’s a unique time in their lives, they are full of excitement but also have a sense of trepidation and are not sure how things will work out.  They are excited to see someone who can answer their questions and there is still so much enthusiasm.  It puts me in a good place as the school librarian because it means I can identify different personalities and think about ways to support these.

What kind of support is needed to make this happen?

The biggest support is from my colleague, Christina, in the library.  The project is delivered jointly by us and is a real team effort.  The support of the transition vice principal is also integral and then of course the primary schools themselves.  Over the years the project has been running, we’ve had the chance to build some fantastic links which has given a chance to liaise and work with schools at other points through the school year helping us to build a real community of reading!

What tips would you give to anyone wanting to run a transition project?

The biggest tip would be to buy slightly more books that your intake!  We have an intake of 200 students, but always buy additional copies (circa 210 copies).  I don’t chose a book that has been out in the last six months so that we can try to get the best support from publishers that is possible.  We also try to make it one that is not too well known in the hope that we are introducing students to new authors and books!  It is excellent to involve other staff, particularly English teachers, so that they can have conversations.  This enables the book to be embedded across different departments and establishes a reading culture within the school.  We try to use English as a springboard into other curriculum areas so when using Dave Cousins’ I’m a Nobody Get Me Out of Here we’ve had maths departments coming on board with measurements and have used heavily illustrated titles so there are links with art too.

How do you go about selecting the book?

It’s really hard to pick a book that 210 students will like when reading tastes and abilities are so varied.  Going for a funny book is a good choice as everyone likes a laugh.  It is also good to go for one that can be accessed by as many people as possible.  We don’t tend to go for upper ability as the shared reading experience is really important.  We’ve gone for Julius Zebra by Gary Northfield and Dragonsitter by Josh Lacey and Phil Earle’s Superhero Street.  We always try to choose books that are part of a series so readers have next steps.  It’s amazing the impact the project has, although Julius Zebra was two or three years ago, it’s still really popular in school as younger brothers and sisters have been told about it and word of mouth has spread.

Has lockdown affected any of your plans for this coming intake?

School were keen we continued with the challenge this year.  The big problem was how we got the books to the schools logistically.  We needed an alternative.  Happily Bloomsbury have produced a fantastic book in connection with the National Literacy Trust put together by Katherine Rundell, The Book of Hope.  It is full of extracts of books, short stories, poems, essays about hope. 

The book is available online for free over the summer.  It will be released in hard copy over the Autumn.  We changed the challenge this year.  We produced an accompanying booklet so if a student enjoys certain types of stories – funny stories, school stories – we could guide them. 

The students are likely to have missed quite a lot of school and we know that there might be concerns around mental health and concentration.  With this in mind, we’ve prepared lots of activities and fun ideas including children continuing some of the stories themselves and recommendations to springboard readers into different books and authors.  There are some fantastic people in the collection, all the ones as librarians we’d like young people to know about.

The money that would ordinarily be spent on books has been ring-fenced and the plan is that once author visits can happen we will invite two or three contributors.  Beatrice Cross at Bloomsbury has been incredibly supportive of us using the anthology.

Ordinarily we would have had the chance to meet with students face-to-face.  As that won’t be possible in the same way and because students won’t have their transition day in the way they normally would, we appealed to staff asking whether they would be willing to be videoed reading extracts from the book.  We anticipated having perhaps 15 people taking part, but we’ve had such a positive reaction we’ve got over 40 videos.  This is brilliant, it increases accessibility and is fantastic as it makes it a project for everyone.  It also means that students will see the faces and learn the names of 40 different staff members which can help allay some of the anxieties of the new start.

Anyone wanting to run a similar project will be keen to know about outcomes, are there any you can share?

The biggest outcome for me is that the initiative has become such a high profile project in the area that all of the schools in the area have asked to take the project on!  This is really exciting as it means all schools are aware of it and parents and children have the chance to engage with it and appreciate it.  All of the schools are using the booklet we’ve produced and it will form the base of a town ‘mass read’ here in Corby.  During the author visits we’re hoping to bring in other schools and collectively we can now reach thousands of children and help them to enjoy reading.

The project has had a profound impact on the library.  Prior to running it, it would usually take new students a little time to come and find the library and begin exploring it.  Now they have a reason to visit and they bombard us from the get go!  From the first breaktime of the first day onwards, we are absolutely full of new year sevens.  We want the library to be their home at school and it’s exciting that they get into the routine of viewing it in this way so early on!

A big thank you to Amy for sharing her time and expertise.