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Living in Laos

Its fascinating living in a country so removed from where you originally grew up. Having moved to Vientiane, Laos at the end of July 2016 I found myself in a city of temples and monks. And it is just glorious. I travel to work every day with a big smile on my face because I love the lifestyle here. Its so slow paced, no one rushes to do anything and it just happens I have the best job in the world too. Unlike my last school and awful experience in China, this school in Vientiane is just wonderful. The teachers I work with are awesome, the students are amazing and the school properly looks after its teachers. They care about you. I arrive in work most days at 7.30am and I am happy to stay in school till close to 5pm. I am frantically busy. I love my job and I don't think I have dreaded going into work once. How many people honestly get to say that? Over a 5 week period I conducted 5 workshops for parents which ranged from what the VIS library does, to searching and evaluatin
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Almost there...

As my first year comes almost to an end its been a very interesting ride. I have learnt a hell of a lot. And I am so so so ready for next year to start. I can't wait to put what I've learnt into practice and refine it. And the fantastic part is I am still learning. That is the beauty of this job, it never gets dull. No two days are ever the same. My goals for next year are to implement blogs into the library. I established one, but I just have not had a second to spare to do it. I promise I will be updating that and this more regularly. Im so bad at that. I need to be more regimented because I see all the examples out there of people who do the most amazing work and its just so inspiring. In terms of my school library we got 10 iPads which are glorious. I adore them and have been using them so much with my MYP students. Again I cannot wait for next year to use them with the PYPs. The only app I've used with the PYP is ' Don't let the Pigeon Run this App '.
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Read Write Think!

Today I discovered ReadWriteThink  and it has changed my life! There are so many fantastic lesson plans in there for a library. I started with my MYP 2 ATL class their lesson plan on creating a Book Trailer. The MYP 2's are a low level English speaking class. They constantly speak Chinese in the class which drives myself and the other teachers crazy. You spend 3/4 of the class repeating the same phrase over and over again"Please speak English!". So I thought I'd do something fun with them for the next 6 or so weeks making book trailers. We discussed what a good movie trailer looks like, what we expect when we go to the movie theatre and what the advertisement sells us in terms of entertainment. They panicked when I said they'd have to read a book in a week, so we compromised and they only had to read a Children's picture book for next week to discuss and present as there book trailer book. I'm going to do the same activity with MYP 1 who are fantastic
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Display and posters

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I completed my second IB workshop, this time it was entered towards the library which interested me so much more. The online workshop, Making the PYP Library the Hub of Learning  was absolutely fantastic and I learnt so much from it. It made me aware of skills that I have been lacking and am now more focused and determined than ever to change that. Primarily it revolves around IT. I want to upskill myself and learn to use Apps. I can't do it at the moment as I have no tablet to play around on which it makes it so much more difficult to do. I believe that technology is vital to any library, more so in a school library. As a teacher librarian we have a role to play in the school, yes physical books are amazing and irreplaceable but in order to do certain things like keeping children, who are digital natives, we must keep ourselves up to date and knowledgable about all the technology resources out there. I'm doing my best to start brightening up the library with displays and pos
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So far so good...

With a little bit of disruption before the Christmas break, where the Head of the School was fired, which put a bit of a damper mood on the school, this semester has been going really well. I feel like I'm settling more and more into the role. There is so much work to be done. Things that have been established so far have been a budget for the library, a new guided reading section and I'm cataloguing the English books now. I needed to take a bit more control in my role as the Head Librarian. Its still completely new to me. I'm still learning and adapting to the role. Only 6 months ago I was still a lowly library assistant. Used to taking orders and managing my own job, not managing jobs for two other people. I love the job. I love the excitement the kids have when they enter the library and find new titles. Last week with MYP 1 & 3 I did speed book dating and it was a huge success. Most of the students went home with a book from another person that had been recommen
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New beginnings

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So I entirely forgot about this blog. Whoops! These things do happen. Life tends to get in the way. To catch up over the past two years from where I last left off, I continued to work part time in the library for 2 and half years in total. Then 6 months ago I picked up some more hours and was almost working a full time job. Yet in the back of my mind I was worried about my contracts knowing that they weren't permanent, that job security still lacked. That I was constantly broke. That I had to move home because I couldn't afford to pay rent. So sometime in July I started randomly applying for jobs. I'm not sure I was actually serious about moving away. I think I just really fancied the idea. I'd toyed around for years with the idea. It really was just working up the courage to do so. Then finally in August I was offered a job - in China. My wonderful and amazing boyfriend persuaded me that this was the best decision that I was likely to make. In his words "Stop
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International School Library jobs & Interviews

This summer has been go, go, go in terms of job interviews. Whilst I haven't been exactly successful in the job aspect, it has been informative. I've had 2 Skype interviews with a school in Romania and in Italy. The interview for the school in Romania was interesting, it was over the phone, and I felt a lot more confident in my approach to that interview. I even used BIG words. At the end of the day they were looking for someone who had supervisor skills, something that at the moment, I do not have. The Italian interview, took place whilst I was on holidays in Thailand. It was a face-to-face Skype interview and it was hard. Primarily due to the fact that there was a significant delay, it was hard to get the flow of conversation going. And I had flies landing and driving me insane, so arms were being flung violently around the place. Funnily enough I didn't get the job. It has made me hungrier for an International experience. I personally believe it's the only way
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