In this Section:
- Curriculum Intent & Vision
- Curriculum Choices 2025
- English
- Personal Development
- Extended Project Qualification
- Humanities
- Life Skills & Citizenship
- Mathematics
- Modern Foreign Languages
- Physical Education
- Performing Arts
- Science
- Social Sciences
- Technology
- Visual Arts
- Other Courses on Offer
- Homework
- School Library
- SMSC
- Stretch & Challenge
- Remote Learning
Home » Curriculum » School Library
School Library
The school library provides a bright and spacious environment for students to read and study. We aim to promote reading for pleasure and support students and teachers with learning across the curriculum.
The school library is open Monday to Thursday from 8.00am to 4.00pm and Friday from 8.00am until 3.30pm. The Library has two full time staff, a Chartered Librarian and Assistant Librarian. Sixth Form students often use the LRC for extra study alongside normal lessons. Lower School have timetabled Library lessons, and teachers can book in for other year groups. Everyone is welcome to come along to read and relax quietly during break, lunchtime and after school!
There are approximately 30,000 books and other resources available for loan to help with homework and study. Our stock is wide and varied and we keep it as up to date as possible with books and wider materials chosen to support the curriculum and to further students’ reading. The Carnegie Shadowing Scheme book club is followed by the Library to develop higher level reading for the Lower School.
We have an extensive selection of contemporary fiction as well as classics, and we are always interested in receiving new suggestions or recommendations for books to purchase. We also subscribe to a variety of magazines, journals and newspapers and offer specialist subject periodicals for further reading up to A Level. These are particularly important for the Sixth Form, which is taking the Extended Project Qualification.
We use an online management system called Oliver. This is the catalogue of all our resources where you can browse everything we have in the Library. All students and staff can log into Oliver in school to check their account including their book loans or to reserve items.
Books are loaned out for 8 weeks initially and can be renewed upon request. Reminders are issued on overdue loans (and if books are not returned after a reasonable period, we will charge for replacing them). Students can borrow up to three items at any one time. Sixth Form students may borrow up to six books.
There are 48 computers for homework and research during and outside lesson times, as well as printing and photocopying facilities.
Lessons are timetabled to use the LRC for all Year 7 and Year 8 students in conjunction with the English Department. These support the school’s wider literacy focus, help develop study skills and encourage quiet reading.
Accelerated Reader is an online reading programme, designed to accurately assess a student’s reading level and ensure students are reading at the correct level. This programme is followed by Year 7 and Year 8 students, who can also use the Accelerated Reader Bookfinder.
Other subject teachers across all year groups also bring their classes to the Library to use the resources.
An Inspiring Speech written by a Year 8 Student
“What is so special about reading a book?
Why should people read more often? Well, it’s very simple really. When we read, not only are we improving memory, but research has shown that it makes us feel better and more positive too. Science has shown that reading has some amazing health benefits, including helping with depression, cutting stress, and reducing the chances of developing Alzheimer’s later in life. As well as this, it can improve our emotional intelligence by helping us understand a range of perspectives and motivations!
My parents had me start reading at a very young age and I promise you, I have never regretted it. It’s not that you hate reading (because you are reading/hearing this right now) it is because you have the wrong book. My year three teacher told me once to read the books that are the most damaged on the outside because you can tell by the damage its been read by a lot of people meaning there is probably an incredible story inside. As George RR Martin said “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads, lives only one.”
As for me. Well as you probably know (if you know me in person) I do love to stick my head in a good book. So much so that someone has even asked me if I have a social life! Books help me with my English. They help me to block out the world. They help me have an imagination. I have finished many book series within a day or a week like The Maze Runner Series (read in a week), The Percy Jackson Series (read in a week) and thousands more. I feel there are no words to describe a good book. You just get this pang in your heart when you have finished the series or book. Then that is when you know you have found a home inside a book. Then that is when you know you have found a sense of belonging. Or when you turn the last page and feel like you have lost a friend. That is when you know you have read a truly amazing book.
Currently my sister is writing a book. I’m very proud of her – her ideas are mad and out of this world. But then again, humans are mad (why would you drink a liquid in mass amounts at fun events that is as effective as drinking poison?) You are probably wondering what my point is. Here it is. One day, that kid you see over there. Yes the nerdy looking one who is reading a book. Will become the one writing them. I am now reading her book she is writing, and this is why I love it: I love the feeling you get when you don’t remember you’re reading because you get so captured by the book, that you forget you are reading the words. All you see is descriptions and conversations being carried out in your head. Then, before you know it, you’re reading this whole speech. It’s the best feeling in the world when you realise you have just read a whole 200 pages in half an hour.
My last piece of advice. If people look down on you for crying about a book, give them a pitying look and feel bad for them. If they have never cried over a favourite character being killed, they haven’t lived. If they have never cried over finishing a series that made your grades drop, they haven’t lived. If they read a book a year, they haven’t lived.
How to travel in time: Read.”