Seguridad alimentaria

In relation to stretching the CKG shadowing scheme beyond the school, there were a number of connected initiatives such as a Carnegie event that involved different year groups and the community, a Kate Greenaway initiative that brought together a secondary school and its feeder primaries and a Carnegie Announcement Day that brought together the host group and book groups from two other secondary schools. Additionally, several shadowing groups went to visit authors at local libraries or nearby schools (though trip numbers meant not all were able to attend) and some invited the shortlisted authors into school or Skyped authors. However several group leaders observed that such outside school events were becoming harder to organise; senior management were not always keen for group members to leave their classes to attend.

Some groups who were actively supported by a local coordinator such as a member of the Schools Library Service, or a YLG librarian (who saw the scheme as a key local education authority initiative), were prompted to meet up with other schools at a number of events during shadowing, or to run celebration events for their own schools and neighbouring schools. One also undertook a Skype debate with web cams with another local group and shared their views in this way. Local coordinators could also support groups in arranging joint visits from an author or a judge, so in this way the scheme facilitated collaboration between schools. One particularly significant ambassador for the shadowing scheme was felt to have made a marked impact in her local authority, drawing together schools, motivating group leaders and widening participation:

She has made all the difference, she just draws us all together and it’s so motivating, somehow together we make the most of it – well more of it anyway.

Occasionally community events became highly ambitious, such as a competitive event featuring performances based on Carnegie shortlisted novels, held in a theatre with audiences of school students and parents, and with judging panels composed of authors, librarians, members of the inspectorate etc. This kind of event is extremely high profile, attracting local press coverage.

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Out-of-school events, however, were not necessarily capitalised upon or publicised in the immediate school community, which may be a result of group leaders under-rating their work or their impact though the shadowing scheme, and failing to appreciate the potential of publicising the work within and beyond the school gates.

7.6 Conclusion

It is clear that the group leaders value the CKG scheme very highly; they trust the selection of the books, hold these in high regard, appreciate the online web resources and perceive that these support them in organising their groups. We have pointed out, however, that relatively little attention is afforded the CKG Award criteria and few group leaders seemed aware of the shadowing vote on the website.

Group leaders believe the shadowing scheme assumes a positive position in relation to other reading/literary initiatives and is a key strategy in developing a whole-school reading culture, though they do not all communicate this effectively within their schools. Some groups become involved in shadowing-related activities beyond the school,

particularly in contexts where there is local support for schools to collaborate, although these were seen as increasingly hard to organize in schools in which the value of reading for pleasure was not recognized by the senior management.

The group leaders name few barriers to organizing groups, though they recognize that the costs involved in ordering the books and the time frame for reading the shortlist both represent challenges. They successfully work to overcome these in various ways. To a great extent therefore the success of the scheme relies upon the pro-active nature of the librarians and other group leaders who actively plan for and facilitate group formation. This is an issue we return to in Chapter 9.

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8.

Shadowing and young readers

While there are many differences between shadowing groups (see Section 3.5) there are also fundamental similarities in terms of the benefits that the young people appear to draw from their shadowing sessions. These are seen across the groups and are borne out of the skills and expertise of the group leaders and the enthusiasm of the young people for CKG shadowing.

This chapter explores the range of benefits to young readers identified in evidence from Phases 1 and 2 of the research. The themes discussed below, and direct quotations cited, have been drawn from our observations of shadowing sessions, and interviews with young people and the group leaders who support them. In addition, examples are cited of

students’ writing from activities during the sessions and from the book reviews posted on the shadowing website.

The major themes that emerged from these data sources include shadowing as a means of developing and supporting young people’s reading for pleasure; the broadening of young people’s reading repertoire; the development of young people’s cultural and historical knowledge and understanding; and certain social benefits, such as creating a sense of belonging, and providing a safe environment in which to voice opinions. We also focus on the impact of the discussion that is a key feature of most shadowing groups, in terms of the value of this kind of informal interaction; the potential impact of shadowing talk on young people’s participation in curricular activities; the development of literary appreciation and literary argument, and the potential value and impact of mixed-ability and mixed-age groups. Finally we consider the impact of shadowing on young people’s writing.