How to get schools inspired on a shoestring with ideas from Sarah Harrison

October 7th 2019

Sarah Harrison from Cheshire Education Library Service shares her thoughts and top tips on how to get schools inspired on a shoestring.

When the call went out at a staff meeting, asking who would be willing to take over responsibility for displays around our library, my hand went up. I saw it as an opportunity to add a little variety to my role as well as try and reignite the creative spark I knew I once had within me as a child. Then that little voice kicked in – could I do it?

Funnily enough, one of my first displays was centred on combatting negative thoughts when the book ‘You are awesome’ by Matthew Syed caught my eye. Some branches that had been salvaged from a broken tree and used as a modern day Christmas tree weeks before was to be at the heart of it. The tinsel was gone, and, in its place, I created luggage type labels in a variety of colours to hang from its branches. On each one I wrote a different message about keeping a positive mindset. I also asked each member of staff to write a piece of advice they found useful in the face of adversity or something they liked to do to keep their anxious minds calm. Labels were also placed at reception so that as visitors signed in, they were given the chance to spread their wisdom a little further for the benefit of others. The ‘Positivi-tree’ became a talking point and the range of well-being books that surrounded it often needed to be replaced with extra copies as people borrowed the titles for their own classrooms and took photos to inspire their own displays. The feedback also gave me a little extra confidence to keep ‘having a go’ at new displays and highlighted a key principle I keep in mind when doing all of my displays now which is, where possible, to add an interactive element to them to try and engage the viewer.

With each display I do I’m still learning something new. For example, instead of just choosing a random backing paper, I’ll carefully consider the colour, texture or design and how it can contribute to the overall theme. For a display based around The Women’s World Cup I chose a green backing paper and used white tape to map out a basic pitch to set the scene. I then overlaid this with bunting I made, using the flags from the different countries but cut into the shape of football tops; a resource that I will be able to re-use for other world sporting displays in future.

Whilst it would be lovely to work with a vast budget and have a shopping spree at the local craft shop, as a subscription service, we at the Education Library Service are aware that people are very budget conscious and so any displays made are created using items we already have or can obtain for free, so that our designs can be easily and economically reproduced by our customers. Asking at just the right time I’ve obtained some free green material that I ended up ripping into strands, plaiting and turning into hanging vines that added to an Elmer jungle display.

Another colleague bought in an old giraffe toy for a display that was instigated by The Lion King coming back to cinemas.  It was a silhouette of African animals against an orange back drop bordered by some patterned material which combined looked very effective.  It also proved a good opportunity to showcase some of the African objects we loan out. 

I often like to give my displays a heading and thinking carefully about which font to use can add to the message I am trying to deliver. For example, with a secondary display about Shakespeare, I used a calligraphy type font whereas for a display on recycling I used a bold font but cut the letters out of old packaging.

The possibilities to display resources in a creative way are endless. What starts with a seed of an idea jotted down in a notebook often ends up completely different by the end of the process so don’t be scared, have fun, be inspired by the many wonderful books at your fingertips. Either start with a theme, be stimulated by the wonderful illustrations, or simply by a phrase spoken by one of your visitors (a child accompanying his parent and helping to stack up their books noted “It looks like a book sandwich!”-this stuck in my mind and may be a summer picnic/healthy eating, healthy reading inspired display next year) and go for it!