Ms McKay, who has been school librarian at Corby Business Academy in Corby, Northamptonshire, since it opened in 2008, has introduced staff versus student “battles of the books”, where teachers and pupils don boxing gloves and quiz each other about chosen books.
Other activities include “zombie apocalypses”, where students read zombie-themed literature, learn survival skills and camp out in the woods, and home-made reward scratch cards, which involve students reading a book, doing a quiz on it and winning a scratch card if they get all the answers right. One in four of the cards offer a prize and they have proved so popular that assistant librarian Christina Mangin is making 4,000 of them a year.
Initiatives like these have led to Ms McKay being named as School Librarian of the Year 2016. Students and staff at her school were so delighted to hear about her award that she has received “cards, flowers and cheers when I go into classrooms”.
As well as running the library, Ms McKay delivers library lessons to all year 7 and 8 pupils, teaches information skills to year 12 students, and also works with the wider school community. She firmly believes that the library should be “a feast for the eye” and has introduced comfortable seating, a projector and large screen to show book trailers, performance poetry and plays and a constant stream of new books.
“There is a really strong reading for pleasure ethos in the school,” said Ms McKay, who received her award from author Kim Slater at a School Library Association ceremony in London last week.
Congratulations: Amy McKay, the School Librarian of the Year 2016, is pictured receiving her award from author Kim Slater (Image: Philip Cooper Photography)
Paying tribute to Ms McKay, Ginette Doyle, chair of the School Librarian of the Year selection committee, said: “Amy McKay injects fun into her activities, whether to promote reading for pleasure or to demonstrate study skills. Her library is vibrant, colourful and full of displays promoting books, authors and reading. Passionate about her work, she is a kind and caring individual who has an impact on the lives of her students.”
When SecEd asked Ms McKay to recommend three books for secondary pupils she didn’t hesitate for a second. Her choices are Say Her Name by Juno Dawson, Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.
The four runners-up for the award were Sophie Chalmers from Southbrook School in Exeter, Rachel Knight from Sherborne Girls in Dorset, Alison Tarrant from Cambourne Village College in Cambridgeshire, and Lauren Thow from Portobello High School in Edinburgh.
For information on the award, visit www.sla.org.uk/slya.php