Secondary School

Alison Tarrant is the Chief Executive at the School Library Association and a dedicated school librarian passionate about the ever evolving nature of libraries.

It is unusual for challenge to be at the heart of a teacher’s reading experience, but for school library staff, this is the routine state of play. School library staff aim to build a collection to support learning and personal development; with resources not entering by ‘default’. Instead, each item has to justify its place as part of the library collection.

Writing a piece exploring the opportunities inclusivity offers seemed like a pretty straightforward task. Find some stats, look at some research, read up on a few ‘experts’ and write an article littered with percentages and data…easy! 

That is what Inclusivity has now become after all - a series of research, a plethora of experts and survey after survey churning out a load of stats, repeating the message over and over again that “We need more Diverse books”. 

Whether it’s teacher-tutor or pupil-tutor, there is a myth that due to technology and communicating through a screen, solid relationships can’t be built but as tutors, teachers and pupils will testify, this definitely isn’t the case.