On Monday 9th Jan, Sarah and I attended a seminar at the National Museum Cardiff on the Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification, entitled ‘Opportunities for museums, libraries, archives and heritage sites’, and gave a presentation on the project, giving a brief overview of the project and outlining how information literacy skills align with the Welsh Baccalaureate qualification.
The talks were varied and interesting, starting with an introduction to the WBQ from Ross Thomas, WBQ Development Officer at WJEC and to the WBQ good practice guide from Robin Clutterbuck, project consultant, and including presentations from the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, The National Trust , The National Library, The Centre for Alternative Technology, The Forgotten Landscapes Project and The People’s Collection about how they integrate and facilitate WBQ teaching within their organisations and project work. There were a lot of good ideas and examples of best practice in working with WBQ students, and forging closer links between schools the museums, libraries and archives community in Wales.
Attending this seminar brought home to us how closely aligned to future employability the skills that the WBQ encourages and emphasises are, such as independent learning, collaboration and partnership, research and IT skills, problem-solving abilities, and communication and presenting. These are skills that embedded information literacy teaching can enhance.
