Information and advice for schools and teachers

As part of your school's literacy strategy you may be planning a book week, a visit to your local library or other book related activity. There is no schools library service in Rochdale but the Library Service is more than happy to provide support for teachers and schoolchildren.

Do you know what services are available from your local library or how a librarian may be able to help you? The information on this page may help you plan any library visits or book activities.

What is available?

We aim to meet individual needs but many schools take advantage of the following:

  • Introductions to the library
  • Book talks
  • Library skills sessions
  • The Online Library Catalogue
  • Local History Library visits

And for teachers:

  • Advice on children's books and reading lists
  • Help for homework and school projects

We encourage all children to use Children's Library services at any and all of our libraries.

Who are these services aimed at?

All school aged children including nursery and special needs. Most sessions work best if they are limited to one class at a time and have the active involvement of the class teacher.

What does it cost?

Nothing! All visits to the library, librarians visiting schools, special talks and advice on books are free.

Who do I contact?

All visits must be booked in advance. For further information on visits:

  • To Heywood Library contact 01706 360947
  • To Middleton Library contact 0161 643 5228
  • To the Wheatsheaf Library contact 01706 924972

For further information on visits to any other library or to invite a librarian to visit your school contact 01706 924972

When should I ring?

Now!! Library visits are popular and are often booked weeks in advance.

Introduction to the library

Aims: To introduce children to their local library and its services.

This can be used as a "one-off" session or as the first of a series of visits. Some teachers like an introductory session before beginning regular book exchanges with their class.

Content: A session might include some or all of the following:

  • How to join
  • Borrowing and returning books
  • Overdue books
  • Reservations
  • Looking after books
  • The range of books to be found in the library
  • Other library services
  • Stories
  • How books are arranged
  • An introduction to Library Online

If you want, we can also make time for the children to choose books.

Age Range: All nursery and school aged children.

Ability Level: All abilities including nursery and special needs.

Location: Any library within Rochdale Borough (or if this is impossible, in school).

Length of Session: Flexible eg 20 - 60 minutes depending on age and ability plus time for choosing books, if required.

Book Talks

Many schools like to arrange book talks for each class during a school book week or other promotional event.

Aims: Book talks aim to promote an enjoyment of books and reading and to increase library use. An additional benefit of book talks is that children and teachers are frequently introduced to new authors and illustrators.

Content: A selection of stories and/or "tasters" from longer books are offered. The selection chosen will depend on the age and ability of the pupils in the class and will vary from simple picture books to full length novels. Details of all books mentioned will be sent to the class teacher, if required.

Age Range: All nursery and school aged children.

Ability Level: All abilities including nursery and special needs.

Location: Any library within the Borough (or if this is impossible, a librarian can visit the school).

Length of Session: Approximately 30 minutes depending on age/ability.

Library skills sessions

Aims: To teach children to make the most of a visit to the library and to acquire a variety of library skills.

Content: This can range from a simple guided tour of the library to a full programme of several sessions which might include the library classification scheme, the use of contents pages and indices, and the use of reference books. Quiz sheets and practical work or games are included wherever possible.

Age Range: All school aged children.

Ability Level: All abilities including special needs.

Location: Any library within the Borough. Although it may be possible to run some of these sessions in school, they work best in the library setting.

Length of Session: Sessions will vary in length depending on the age of the children but most will be between 30 minutes and an hour and a half.

As the library skills that can be taught in one session are limited, many classes book 2-3 sessions and some have booked a longer programme of approximately 10 sessions.

Local history library visits

Aims: To introduce pupils to the Local Studies Service and give "hands on" experience of maps, photographs, documents, newspapers and the census returns etc. in the context of the National Curriculum and Local Studies - including the history and geography of an area etc.

Content: This can include:

  • A short talk introducing the types of materials available
  • For primary school groups, question sheets relating to what to look for in old newspapers, photographs and the census
  • For older pupils, materials can be provided for study on selected themes, with a short introductory talk on the materials chosen and how they relate to the chosen theme

A prior visit by the teacher is essential to discuss themes, materials and class numbers etc.

Age Range: 7+

Ability Level: All abilities including special needs.

Location: There are three Local Studies Libraries in the Borough, at Heywood and Middleton Libraries and the Local Studies Centre at Touchstones, Rochdale.

Prior visits and arrangements must be made by teachers.

Due to space restrictions Middleton Library can only take class size groups in the mornings.

Length of Session: By arrangement with library staff. Dependent upon materials required and number of children or groups, usually between one and two hours.

Other Information: Loan photographs are available from the Local Studies Centre at Touchstones, Rochdale. Maps and other documents may be photocopied at all three libraries, where microprint copies of newspaper articles and the census may also be obtained. And we also have learning materials here onthe web.

Advice on children's books

Do you need a book to use in a particular situation - for children scared of the dark or to highlight stranger danger, for example?

Do you need a story with a particular theme?

Or do you need suggestions for good modern authors to update your current school's reading list?

Then contact one of the librarians at:

  • Heywood Library on 01706 360947
  • Middleton Library on 0161 643 5228
  • The Wheatsheaf Library on 01706 924972

We can not guarantee we will be able to track down every single item but we will certainly do our best to help.

Homework and school projects

Many children like to use the library when studying a particular topic or project in school. We are keen to build on this enthusiasm but need your help to do this.

What you can do:

  • Visit (or at least contact) your local library before the project starts to see what material is available and how easy it is to use. Library staff will be able to help you in your search.
  • Inform the library in advance of the dates when the children will be working on the project and exactly what information the children need to find. We get some very interesting garbled messages! Here are some examples we managed to solve:- "Julie Kaiser" (Julius Caesar); "Leonardo di Caprio" (Leonardo da Vinci); and "What musical instrument did Jesus play?" (How was Jesus instrumental in world history?)
  • Consider booking a library skills session for your class at the local library.

Unfortunately there are occasions when we are not given notice of projects and may be unable to help a child. In order to register the child's attempt to find information we will send you a letter to this effect.

What we can do:

  • Help you locate relevant material, if necessary borrowing items from other libraries.
  • Make some of the material available "For use in the library only" until the end of the project to enable the maximum number of children to make use of it.
  • Teach children the library skills needed to obtain the information. This can be arranged at a special session for your class.

We look forward to meeting you and your class in the library soon.

The online library catalogue

How to make Rochdale’s Library Catalogue work for you

Rochdale Library Service’s online Library Catalogue is available at the link above, providing you with access to:

  • All Lending Library stock in all our libraries
  • All Reference Library stock except British Standards and periodicals in all our libraries
  • All new material in the Local Studies collections and an increasing number of the older material in the open access collections (the Local Studies Centre in Touchstones has only recently been added to the Catalogue and we are currently adding the back catalogue)
  • A child-centred version of the Catalogue ("Kids’ Portal")
  • An index of cuttings and articles held, mostly on microfilm, in the Local Studies Libraries at Heywood, Middleton and Touchstones
  • Pre-selected searches for popular — or peculiar! — authors, topics and themes
  • Reading lists
  • Links to reader development web sites
  • Links to local studies web sites
  • Online reservation services
  • Online loan renewals

Many of these functions will be useful to teachers. We want to make help you make the most of them. Here are a few suggestions:

Planning project work

If you send your class to the library for information on your topic, will they find anything?

Search the catalogue and see what’s available at the library. Suppose all the class descend on the library to take books out for this project, how many will be disappointed? It doesn’t happen often but it has been known. Nil desperandum! Let the Children’s Services Librarian know what you’re planning. If you give him a few weeks to get everything organised he can arrange for reinforcements to be sent from other libraries; or for there to be resources available for use within the library.

Help us build reading lists. At the moment there are lists of Blue Peter Prize-winning books; Children’s Laureates’ books; and stories about relationships, cats and pirates. There’s no reason why there couldn’t also be lists of books that you would like your class to read. Please give us a few weeks’ notice, and it’s a good idea to make sure that we actually have the books first. First come, first served but we’ll try our best to include as many lists as possible.

Help us to help your children think laterally. A book with information about Henry VIII doesn’t have to be called "Henry VIII." We don’t have any books called "A Book With Pictures of Rabbits In It," but we have plenty of books that do have pictures of rabbits. And which story would tell you what it was like to be stuck in an air raid? We can try and make sure that reading lists include some not-so-obvious titles.

Let us help you connect your class with the community. We can help you make the links between your project; resources in our lending and reference libraries; resources on the web; and resources in the Local Studies libraries.

Did you know that search routines on our Library Catalogue generate unique URLs? If you’ve found a search that gives you a useful list of titles you can save it as a Favourite on your browser. When you come back to that page it’ll be bang up to date with any additions to or withdrawals from the Catalogue automatically included.

Teachers are human beings, too!

You’re a customer, or a potential customer. You would be surprised what we have got in stock in our libraries (we are frequently astonished). Have a look around. If you are registered with us as a borrower and you have got a PIN you can reserve items or renew loans whenever you want. If you are registered with us and do not have a PIN, please ask us to set one up next time you are in the library. If you are not registered with us as a borrower, it does not cost a penny to join; and we have currently just over 174,000 titles in stock.