Monthly Archives: November 2017

On the 24th November following the letter I sent to Justine Greening the Secretary of State for Education I sent an email to her shadow counterpart Angela Rayner:

Dear Ms Rayner

On the 21st November I sent Justine Greening a letter (http://teenlibrarian.co.uk/2017/11/21/dear-justine-school-libraries-need-your-help/), on the 24th November Dawn Finch on behalf of CILIP also sent her a letter (http://www.cilip.org.uk/default.asp?page=schoollibrariessos).

The purpose of these was to highlight the dire straits that state school and college libraries in England find themselves in and the fact that England has the lowest teen literacy rate of all OECD nations. We feel that these two things are linked.

In the past, due to the non-statutory nature of school libraries and librarians, UK government ministers have left the decision about school libraries up to the heads of individual schools, this has clearly not worked as the low levels of literacy of English teenagers shows.

As Shadow Secretary of State for Education you have an important voice in parliament, I urge you to throw your support behind the push to have school libraries and librarians considered an absolute necessity for schools and colleges in England.

Yours sincerely

Matt Imrie
Librarian & Editor: Teen Librarian

Yesterday (the 29th November) I received a response from Labour’s Membership Services and Correspondence team:

Dear Matt,

Thanks for writing to Angela Rayner MP in her capacity as Shadow Secretary of State for Education. At this point in time Angela’s mailbag is so full that she has asked me to respond on her behalf.

Labour Party policy is created through discussion and consultation with our members – so thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts; I have forwarded your comments on to our Policy Team who will be grateful to receive them.

During our Annual Conference in Brighton, Angela Rayner MP outlined the Labour Party’s plan to transform Britain’s education system and set out the core principles of our National Education Service.

As we continue to build on our General Election manifesto in anticipation of entering Government, the draft charter sets out the principles that will structure and guide our National Education Service.

Angela Rayner MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, said:

The next Labour government will create a National Education Service, a cradle-to-grave system supporting everyone throughout their lives. It would start in the early years, where we know it has the most impact on changing people’s lives. But our National Education Service is not just for young people either. Our National Education Service will be lifelong, providing for people at every stage of their life.

It will set out the education that people can expect throughout their lives. The contribution that society makes to them and that they can make to society.

Years of Conservative cuts have and continue to starve schools of the funding they need to deliver a first class education. Crippling underfunding will drive up class sizes and may force schools to cut corners. Labour will give all of our schools the investment they need, to ensure that every child has access to a world-class education.

We really value your ideas on how the next Labour government should tackle the challenges our country faces, and build a more equal and prosperous Britain.

As a member of the Labour Party, you can submit policy ideas and contribute to policy discussions online at policyforum.labour.org.uk. As I said earlier, Labour Party policy is created through consultation and discussion with our members, so be sure to have your say in our Policy Forum today.

As a member of the Labour Party, you can submit policy ideas and contribute to policy discussions online at policyforum.labour.org.uk, we’d appreciate it if you could submit your policy idea to this site so that it can be considered by our Early Years, Education and Skills Policy Commission.

Best wishes,

[redacted]
Membership Services and Correspondence
On behalf of Angela Rayner MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education

World Book Day Limited is a registered charity in the UK (charity no. 1079257)

According to the Charity Commission, the object of the Charity is to advance the education of the public, particularly by assisting in the promotion of reading among children and young people. The Charity will particularly promote World Book Day, which shall comprise a series of events each year, or any other such event, the purpose of which is to promote and encourage reading among children and young people
[source: http://beta.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details?regid=1079257&subid=0]

Indeed WBD Ltd claims that: World Book Day is a celebration! It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.
[source: http://www.worldbookday.com/about/]

Over the years I have been a massive fan and supporter of the work undertaken by WBD, giving all children and young people the opportunity to own a book they can choose themselves. I was disappointed in the lack of writers of BAME heritage for the 20th anniversary this year but the selection of titles was accessible for readers from toddlers to teens with a range of genres to appeal to most tastes.

The 2018 list by comparison is sadly lacking; the preponderance of celebrity authors on the list has attracted criticism from authors, librarians and other observers. The abundance of humour texts comes at the expense of other genres and there is only one non-fiction title. Add to this the complete lack of YA titles and, despite protestations from WBD Ltd that “news about the YA list would be made public in coming weeks”, we have heard and seen nothing.
[source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/02/childrens-authors-slam-celebrity-heavy-world-book-day-lineup]

One may argue that children and young people are still able choose one of the WBD Ltd Books with their book token, and, if none of the books take their fancy they can put the token towards purchasing a full-price book of their choice. This argument is specious as it excludes children from families living in poverty and teens who, as they currently have nothing to choose from, may be forced to look towards the shelves of full-priced books. Many young readers are not able to afford a full-price title, even one with a £1 book token discount.

There were 3.9 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2014-15. That’s 28 per cent of children, or 9 in a classroom of 30. [source: http://www.cpag.org.uk/child-poverty-facts-and-figures] and this number is projected to rise by 2020 [same source]

Returning to the claim that World Book Day is a celebration of authors, illustrators, books… and reading, an interview from 2014 that the American Booksellers Association held with Tim Godfray of the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland makes for interesting reading.

One of the questions:

BTW: What are some of the marketing or advertising activities underway in the U.K. to promote bricks-and-mortar bookstores to consumers? How successful has the Books Are My Bag campaign been?

Garnered an interesting answer (excerpted from the full answer)

TG: …One of our biggest promotions is World Book Day. One of our companies in the BA group prints 14 million special World Book Day book tokens. These are given to children through their schools and then the children take these World Book Day book tokens into the shops around World Book Day and they can exchange the token either for a free paperback book, which has been produced especially for the promotion by the publishers, or they can get a pound off virtually any purchase in the shop. It’s more powerful than just seeing an advertisement on a magazine page: it actually encourages children with their parents to go physically into a bookshop. World Book Day has been for us a really, really significant success.
[source: http://www.bookweb.org/news/qa-tim-godfray-booksellers-association-uk-and-ireland]

So rather than a celebration as claimed, it is quite blatant that Booksellers are using World Book Day as a marketing ploy to get people into bookshops (anyone that has innocently asked if it is possible for bookstores to come into schools on the day with a selection of WBD Ltd Books will already know this of course).

Now I have no problem with booksellers trying to stem the destruction caused by the rampant growth of online retailers, but the organisers of World Book Day Ltd. need to make a decision:

 
Failure to do this and the current silence in the face of growing questions is damaging the WBD brand.

You can view the mostly amazing lists of books published in support of World book Day from 2012 to 2018 courtesy of the Internet Archive here: