Library
"Pupils and staff at this school love reading. " (OFSTED 2022)
Reading is at the heart of everything we do at Duke Street Primary School. We want to support every single child to develop a passion for reading that will last a lifetime. Recently, the library has had a major overhaul to create a calm and relaxing space, filled with a diverse selection of books.
Through pupil conferencing, surveys and book talk in classrooms, we are working hard to get to know the children as readers and provide books that will appeal to all pupils.
More recently, we won a box of 100 diverse and inclusive books from IBC (Inclusive Books for Children charity). These books have been added to displays in the library, form part of our recommended reads section and are used throughout school.
We are supported in our development of a Reading for Pleasure ethos by our Reading Rocks subscription. This provides each Key stage (EYFS, KS1, LKS2 and UKS2) two brand new carefully curated books each half term. We are now entering the 4th year of this subscription which has been made possible by our amazing sponsors, Sunshine Street, Codias, Longworth Forensics and Timpsons. These books are also used throughout school and their arrival each half term is eagerly anticipated by pupils.
Each class has a weekly library session where they can borrow books to take back to their classrooms and enjoy, listen to a story or just spend time exploring new books.
The library is also used after school for Book Clubs. A year 3/4 and year 5/6 book club runs weekly where children enjoy a biscuit and a book. The books read are often from our Reading Rocks subscription and the children really enjoy these sessions.
At Duke Street Primary School, reading is not just confined to the library!
Through regular sponsored events (Bog-eyed jog, Penalty shoot-outs, Superhero stomps etc) and the amazing support of pupils and parents we have raised money to fund reading initiatives throughout school. The ‘Machine of Dreams’ was purchased from funds raised and is hugely popular with pupils. Children are expected to read at home at least 3 times a week. For every home read completed, children receive a stamp on their stampcard. After 60 stamps the children, in Good News Assembly, receive a golden coin to use in the machine and choose a book to keep.
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We strive to make reading more meaningful for our pupils and we love inviting authors/illustrators into school in person and into classrooms with Virtual author events. We have enjoyed assemblies with songs and magic tricks with children and staff taking an active role. We’ve also enjoyed draw-a-longs, quizzes and the children being able to ask questions directly to authors/poets/illustrators through virtual events. These event always create a huge ‘book buzz’ throughout school with some authors becoming firm favourites amongst the children. Each key stage has at least one virtual event each term. Our Reading Rocks subscription helps to facilitate this as well as others e.g. Waterstones, The Anne Frank trust etc. We hope to further enhance these experiences by forging links with local authors/poets and illustrators.
World Book Day is another event that children and staff look forward to. This year children were invited to come to school in their pyjamas with their favourite teddy bear to enjoy a day of book related enrichment activities. Each World Book day the children visit the Duke Street Pop-up bookshop, where they can choose a World book day book to take home alongside receiving a World book day book token.
We want the children to experience high quality texts that include fiction, non-fiction and poetry, so we have created a new initiative to facilitate this. From September (26/27) classes in EYFS and KS1 will receive, every half term, a basket of the ‘Top 5 picks’. Staff will encourage children to really ‘get to know’ the books alongside their authors and illustrators. Through oracy and drama opportunities, we hope to further enhance Reading for Pleasure.
In KS2, we have created a reading spine of high-quality books for each year group. In class novel time, children will read a new book each half term. These books include classic fiction, poetry and new highly recommended texts. We hope that this will further develop book talk within classrooms.
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Using funds raised we have been able to create reading areas across school. We have purchased books to be read in the outdoor Reading canopy and have been able to create a reading space in the ‘horseshoe’.
These areas are ‘staffed’ by a dedicated team of Reading ambassadors/Librarians. Children are invited to apply for this position and share their love of reading with other children. They read to younger children and keep these areas tidy.
There are two other areas in school where staff and children can access high quality and highly recommended texts. Miss Pierce’s Little Library, is located in the KS1 corridor and is a small bookcase containing books from our Reading Rocks subscription and our IBC book box as well as other recommended books.
Near the main reception, in the ‘purple chairs’ area there are bookcases that the children and staff can also borrow books from. One bookcase contains books that reflect our ICARE values and the others contain our collection of graphic novels. The use of graphic novels in school has had a huge impact on Reading for Pleasure. Along with our Beano subscription (kindly sponsored by Codias), it has enabled children who may have barriers in accessing traditional books to become ‘readers’.
Another form of reading that has recently had a huge impact on pupils is the use of audio books. For the last half term we have been taking part in a trial with Calibre Audio. Pupils with SEND have had bi-weekly sessions listening to an audio book whilst also having the text to read along with. Attitudes to reading have changed vastly, with many of the children reporting at the start of the trial that they didn’t like reading to by the end of term all of them stating that they now enjoyed reading. The children involved all thoroughly enjoyed these sessions and have discovered books that they possibly never would have read.
We are very excited to be taking part in the trial for the whole of next year (26/27) and we are looking forward to reaching more children and improving attitudes to and attainment in reading.
Due to the success of these sessions, through money raised by our most recent sponsored event, alongside giving each class money to spend to improve their class reading areas we hope to fund headphones for each class to be able to use audio books within the classroom environment.
We are very proud of the reading culture we are creating at Duke Street and we want to share this with parents and carers. For the last two years we have run Reading Cafe sessions where grown-ups are invited into school to share books with their children whilst enjoying a tea or coffee. Each class/year group has a Reading Cafe session each term. These sessions are increasingly well supported by adults and the children look forward to these sessions. Children whose parents/carers cannot attend are read a story by their teacher/TA and the books shared at these sessions come from our Reading Rocks subscription, IBC Box and Miss Pierce’s little library. These books are changed each term so the children and their families can explore and experience more of the wonderful books we have in school.
To further enhance parental engagement with reading we have our trusty bunch of Book Bears. Each class has their own Bear who comes complete with a bag, a book and a diary. Each week in Good News assembly, a child from each class is chosen to take home the class bear over the weekend to share the book in the Bear’s bag.