LearnPath Case Study - European School RheinMain

European School RheinMain introduces LearnPath

The European School RheinMain, located on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, is one of 25 schools operating within the renowned European School System, which has established a reputation as one of the leading school systems in the world.

Since opening in 2012, the European School RheinMain has grown its student population to more than 1400, ranging in age from pre-primary to secondary. The European School curriculum culminates with the prestigious European Baccalaureate diploma, which is recognised in all member-states of the European Union. As well as cherishing its reputation for excellence, the European School RheinMain strives to constantly improve its quality offering for students.

The Library provides services to all members of the school community and plays an important role in supporting the European School RheinMain to achieve its objectives, whether pedagogical, cultural, or social. Specifically, it aims to take an active role in students’ education by providing the most comprehensive and diverse range of resources and reading materials possible to foster literacy development, cultural awareness, and equip students with media literacy and research skills.

The school has been using Softlink’s Oliver v5 school library management system since 2012 and in late 2017 implemented LearnPath to provide an easy to access digital platform for curated, subject-specific resources.

School Librarian, Renate Kirmse said their goal is to install LearnPath guides for all subjects and important sub-subjects taught at the school.

“We believe this will make life easier for teachers and students.”

Renate said LearnPath will help them guide students to quality, relevant resources.

“School libraries should help students to find their path through the growing world of information - and disinformation.”

Educational outcomes are high on the list of priorities for the European School RheinMain, which is justifiably proud of its rigorous, academically-focused curriculum and the excellent standards it consistently maintains. As part of the school’s strategy for achieving such outstanding results, the library encourages students to read widely and critically, and to be aware of contextual issues while learning. Renate said LearnPath provides a useful support for introducing students to the broad range of resources available via the library.

“LearnPath helps to encourage students to use a wider range of sources. It will improve understanding of the number of resources the library offers (digital and analogue) and awareness around copyright problems.”

Renate believes LearnPath provides benefits for both teachers and students and creates improved awareness of how the school library can support teaching and learning.

Although LearnPath is a very new introduction to the library, they are looking forward to more teachers discovering its potential.

“Once we’ve got one or two teachers involved in our project, news will spread through the staffroom that there is another very helpful service provided by the library.”

Renate also said she is pleased with how simple and intuitive LearnPath has been to implement.

“It was less complicated than expected; I think you can use it quite intuitively.”

Renate and her colleagues are excited about the difference LearnPath will make to the way they present information. The streamlined integration with Oliver v5 and their library resources was also important to them.

“We prefer having one platform for everything we offer to the students and teachers, it makes it easier for students and teachers to access resources.”

Renate Kirmse’s German-language book about school libraries, Schulbibliothek, is part of the Praxiswissen series available from De Gruyter Saur publishers.
 

“This volume addresses the needs of school librarians in clear language and uses real-life practical examples to teach the most important aspects of working in school libraries.”

To find out more about LearnPath, please visit these links:

• To find out more about how LearnPath can support digital learning, read this blog
• In this video case study (5:40min), Jim Gallagher discusses his success using LearnPath guides as a teaching tool, and a number of other benefits of introducing LearnPath at his school.
• Hear from LearnPath user, Elizabeth Lansdown, in this video case study (2:15min). Elizabeth shares how she is collaborating with teaching staff to produce guides and using LearnPath to provide a one-stop-shop for library resources.