The school library

Older brothers and sisters and even some parents may remember the humble beginnings of the library. It started out in part of a large classroom, but sadly the fire of the summer of 1990 put an end to that, with many books being destroyed. With some insurance money and as many books as we could possibly save, the library then moved to a room of its own, with a carded borrowing system and bookcases donated by the old Ilfracombe library. Around the millennium we moved once again to the 'little room next to the gym', now the games room, and became a reference library which was just open at lunchtimes.

Then last year we were then lucky enough to have a brand new, beautiful library built in the quad area. It has been beautifully furnished and resourced with thousands of high quality fiction and non fiction reading books, many of them new, and a full time librarian to look after it for us!

Every child in the school has been set up with access to the book loan system and they all learn library and research skills. We have a computerised library system, to help us keep track of the books. It recognises us by our thumb print, which is fun to use and cannot be seen by anyone but the computer, or by a bar code, which we use most of the time because it is quicker!

Everyone gets chance to visit the library with their class during lesson time once a week, but if books need top be changed more frequently, the library is open at lunchtimes. It is one of our school's main priority to encourage our children to develop a joy of reading that can be shared with the whole family, so the library is open to both parents and children on Tuesdays and Thursdays for half an hour after school when you can come and chose a book together.

Children are able to keep books for a week, but can of course renew them if they want to. If we loose a book we are asked to pay for it, so this makes us take such good care of them that rarely does anyone have to pay.

We try to keep a quiet, calm atmosphere in the library with soothing background music playing while we are choosing our books although we are, of course, allowed to talk quietly!

We have a good selection of story tapes that we can listen to at lunchtimes, many of these have books that can be read while we listen. Occasionally we go to the library in small groups to do research, read, or for literacy work and twice a week we have life skills sessions, where we learn more about how to use the library and enjoy a story
or two!

We are all very proud of our lovely new library. We treat it with care and respect and hope it will remain one of the most popular places in school for many years to come.

World Book Day - March 02 2006

A day when books came to life at Ilfracombe Junior School! A fantastic, fun-filled day to celebrate all our favourite story book characters.