Miss, you said we could order any magazine for the library. Did you really mean any magazine?” asked the smiling teenager, sitting with his mates round a table.

When Julie Simmons, teacher-librarian at Invergordon Academy, Ross-shire, embarked on a mission to encourage more boys to read literature, she tried many things.

“I wondered how I might enthuse some of the lads who descended on the library, but who obviously weren’t very interested in books,” she says. “I hit on the idea of asking them to choose some of the reading material, starting with the magazine rack.

“When the teenager asked, ‘Any magazine?’ I really thought I had dropped myself in it. He must have seen the mixture of surprise and relief on my face when he continued, ‘We would like you to get Farmer’s Weekly’.

“And it wasn’t a wind-up - there was a genuine interest among boys from the farming community.”

Julie is one of many well-organised, conscientious librarians in Highland schools who are supporting teachers as they try to encourage boys to read more. But she is unusual, not only for her innovative approach but also because she is registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

Scotland is a long way from home for Julie. She grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, where she had to be a qualified teacher to work in a school library.

She studied librarianship at university along with English and history. As a secondary teacher-librarian, one of her tasks was to teach pupils research and information-gathering skills across the curriculum. In Australia even the small primary or secondary school had a teacher with a specialism in librarianship.

Pupil fans of Neighbours are intrigued by her twang. They also enjoy her occasional tale of deadly snakes and curious kangaroos in her home Down Under.

As a teacher in Australia there is an entitlement to sabbatical leave, and Julie chose to take up a teaching post in London. After a spell there she needed a break from the chalkface and decided to set up her own business, pursuing her hobby of making porcelain dolls. However, she soon realised that the grass was not really greener: she missed working in a school, especially the regular contact with younger people.

Four years ago a friend passed her an advert for a librarian post in Invergordon Academy and she made enquiries, “initially to find out where it was on the map”.

On visiting Invergordon, she was struck by the positive ethos which permeated the school and was eager to work closely with the teachers.

As soon as she was appointed she registered with the GTC to allow her to take on a teaching role while carrying out her librarian duties. But she soon found that the Scottish system, and her contract, had its limitations. While she may indeed be qualified to take on a double role she has a librarian’s conditions of service and, more importantly, the lower salary that goes with it.

“I was surprised to learn that my joint qualification would not be recognised financially,” she says. “I do have the option of applying for a teaching post, but being a teacher-librarian gives me the opportunity to work on many interesting projects with pupils and teachers from many departments. As a teacher I would, strictly speaking, only be allowed to teach English.”

Julie has explored a number of avenues of research across the curriculum. She is halfway through studies for an MEd in literacy through distance learning with Sheffield University.

“The springboard for this was a year-long research project on raising standards of literacy among boys, which I undertook for the Scottish Council for Research in Education. I am interested in the whole issue of gender and literacy and wanted to extend my research, particularly when I saw tangible results in Invergordon.”

Staff at the school soon came to value her experience and, above all, her enthusiasm. First she re-organised the library. In response to the research project, she ensured that there was a wider selection of material for boys, particularly non-fiction.

“We had a voluntary reading incentive scheme, but I found that boys would not take part because we were asking them to read fiction. In the first year only two boys received awards. I changed the programme to give equal rating to non-fiction, while encouraging boys to read a broad range of books. To our surprise and delight, many responded. At the annual award ceremony last year and this, an equal number of boys and girls were given certificates.”

In her effort to raise the profile of literacy she enlisted support from outside the school gates. Ross County, the local football team and heroes of many of the pupils, present the reading awards. This, in Julie’s words, “has given ‘street cred’ to the whole business of books for boys”.

Then, in co-operation with the English department, she piloted an “induction” programme for the parents of Secondary 1 pupils. She invites them to a part-social, part-educational evening in the library to welcome them to the school and to give them an information pack.

“Invergordon pupils come from a variety of backgrounds and the town has its fair share of social problems. Some of the parents may not have succeeded at school themselves.

“The pack contains a selected list of titles which pupils might enjoy. It includes books which last year’s S1s have recommended. I also draw up a list of ideas for parents to encourage reading at home and each year invite an author to speak to them.”

Julie is involved in a number of joint projects with departments throughout the school. In January this year she mounted a display in the learning resource centre commemorating the first National Holocaust Memorial Day. This was organised with the religious and moral education department, in association with the Jewish Museum in London and the Holocaust Educational Trust, and included input from several other school departments.

More than 800 people attended the exhibition, including pupils from other schools and the public.

A pupils’ anthology of writing for young people, the Millennium Book, funded by a Millennium Festival grant, was launched on World Book Day in March. Also announced was an out-of-hours literacy project with support from the New Opportunities Fund.

Julie is co-ordinator of the three-year project, which aims to provide a range of exciting new opportunities to develop pupils’ literacy skills. These include web-page design, reading groups for parents and children, and workshops with writers and other experts covering all aspects of literacy. Three senior pupils are employed as mentors to help run the activities.

On International Literacy Day on September 8, pupils created picture books for primary school children. They visited the schools and shared their books with the younger pupils who responded enthusiastically to the stories. This was organised with the English department.

Another award the school has received is from Barclay’s New Futures. Working with the citizenship co-ordinator, senior pupils will organise problem solving days for local Primary 7 pupils.

Julie speaks animatedly about other initiatives, such as year-group committees to recommend resources; joint projects with the history department; and “paired computing”, where older boys work with younger pupils.

The learning resources centre has recently been chosen as one of the case studies for Learning and Teaching Scotland’s publication Creativity in Education, which will be launched this month. It was chosen for its high level of pupil participation in the running of the centre and for encouraging autonomous learning.

John Muir is an adviser in Highland