Richard Simpson, Deputy Headteacher, Broadlea Primary School
Reading is my passion, both personally and professionally, so when I arrived at Broadlea Primary as a Deputy Headteacher four years ago and was tasked with improving reading as a key priority, the sight of an old disused Design Technology lab was just the blank canvas I needed to create a space that would inspire and drive pupils towards books and developing a love of reading.
The problem, however, as many if not all schools will know themselves, was the cost involved … so, 18 months later, after a series of fundraising events, grant applications, donations from local charities and a lot of in-house work from our fabulous site manager, the library at Broadlea was opened and ready to read in!
We’d focused on creating a colourful, bright, separate space where children, teachers, parents and visitors could come and read for pleasure.We’d had lots of debate about locating books throughout the school rather than in just this one area, but decided not to. We didn’t want a few shelves full of tattered books stuck in the corner of a corridor, but we were clear this wasn’t an extra classroom for lessons. So, we’d involved pupils to listen to what they wanted and researched online to choose the layout and furniture, and arranged it so that it welcomed readers in and encouraged them to spend time there looking at, choosing, reading and discussing books. One of life’s greatest pleasures, for me, is being able to spend half an hour browsing the shelves in a bookshop … how great would it be if we could recreate that experience and feeling for our pupils in school?
As a book reviewer and bookblogger (whatiread.co.uk and @richreadalot on X and Instagram), I’m lucky enough to be sent proofs and review copies of many great books, so I know and believe that we live in a time like never before for fantastic literature for children being published, with more variety, more diversity, more authors representative of the readers themselves available. Gone are the days (or gone they should be!) of only a handful of authors and established names being in print – today’s readers can read about a wider range of characters, places and adventures than ever before, IF they can access them. Any books I’m sent get donated to the library once I’ve posted about or reviewed them, so we’re very lucky that we save some money that way and that pupils have some of the most recent books available. The constant refreshing of stock and new titles to talk about is one of the things our pupils love most about the space!
The library is now a place where there is a real buzz of enjoyment. We were very clear that this was a space for reading for pleasure – children are not here to read a prescribed text from our reading scheme, much as we love Little Wandle and our Big Cat books! As you can see from the pictures, we created zones within it to enable it to be used in different ways, and chose furniture that can be moved and used in a variety of ways, too. We also contacted some authors who wrote letters and donated things such as posters and books for display, as well as working closely with local booksellers who have helped by providing discounts, resources, books as prizes for competitions, and who welcome a selected group of children several times a year to choose books on a bookshop visit – it’s one of our librarian’s favourite days!
We started off by organising the books alphabetically, but have since adapted this to shelve books according to genre which makes it easier for children to find books, rather than having to rely on a teacher’s knowledge to recommend authors – the feedback from this has been positive, so it’s a move I would recommend considering. Much as we would like to, many teachers just don’t have the time to keep up to date with all the children’s literature out there, so this means children are able to more easily find a book they will enjoy. The separation of a prescribed, ability-levelled book, and the choice of a book for pleasure/enjoyment is a clear distinction we make and was very important for us.
We have a scheduled lesson each week for children to come and use the library – they can swap books, read aloud, discuss or do activities related to the books – there is no direct teaching here, it’s very much pupil-led and designed to let them have the experience of reading for enjoyment and take responsibility for what they read, rather than it being directed. We also run a lunchtime club, supervised by myself and another teacher, where children can come along to sit in and use the library as a space to read, ask us to help find a book, talk to other children there about books or read together. We didn't want to run a club with a prescribed book as we felt it may dissuade or exclude some readers, and wanted to focus on the act of enjoying reading itself, no matter what was chosen, especially as data from the most recent PIRLs survey shows that only 29% of children in England say they read for pleasure.
What we’ve found with the library club is that children are desperate to come and handle books for themselves, much as one would browse in a bookshop as an adult. They love investigating and ‘browsing’ the shelves themselves, as well as talking to the adults and their peers whilst there. We’ve seen children getting excited about finding out there are more books in a series, and that authors have written another title that they can read having enjoyed a work by them previously. Organising the books by genre has also helped children find more books to read on topics that they enjoy, and we’re seeing more books being taken out than previously (in terms of loans) by children as they find more that they enjoy reading, whether it be those by a specific author, or those from within a genre they enjoy such as ‘spy’ or ‘sci-fi’.
Vocabulary is an area of English that we are keen to develop in our pupils through explicit teaching and ‘book talk’ in lessons, but we are also seeing a positive impact on this through the informal independent chat that happens in these library club sessions. When talking about the books they have chosen to read for pleasure, the children are naturally talking about their likes, dislikes, favourite characters and events from the books as they speak to the teacher supervising, or engage with other pupils who see what they are reading and want to know more.
As Katherine Rundell said in her recent speech upon winning author of the year for a children’s book, “the main problem is access. Getting books into children’s hands”. As teachers and schools we are in a prime position to be able to help with this ...
My top tips for building engagement after the last few years of developing our library would be:
-
Involve children: as librarians, in book choices, in book “clubs”, in finding out what they’d like - it’s their space!
-
Make the space comfortable – choose furniture that encourages use so they stay and read, talk and engage with the space.
-
Get involved with local authors and bookshops – invite them in and see what they can do for you!
-
Model a love of reading as teachers/adults. Children love nothing more than finding out what you are reading and enjoying!
-
Use online visits/experiences to encourage children to look at new and exciting authors – look at publisher/author websites and register, or use a site like authorfy.com. The follow up enthusiasm after one of these is great to see and build on – letters to the author and displaying their reply have been particularly powerful here (see the Hannah Gold standee she sent which has pride of place!), but make sure you have copies of the book available!