New library at school in Morpeth to help promote reading

St Robert’s Catholic First School, a member of the Bishop Bewick Catholic Education Trust, has unveiled the state-of-the art facilities – which include Chromebooks and iPads that children can use, as well as a wide range of books.

Created from an existing space within the school’s building, the library’s design was decided in consultation with some of its young users-to-be.

Headteacher David Sutcliffe said: “We wanted to create a modern, inspiring space that promotes a love of reading and supports wider learning and well-being.

“With this in mind, we identified a bigger, brighter location within the school and set about designing a fresh, new and inviting space to promote our reading for pleasure culture.

“We involved the school council in identifying how the new library should look and the children helped to choose the colour scheme, furniture and overall theme.”

St Robert’s held two in-school book fairs to help raise funds to stock the new library and also had many new books donated.

“Every child in the school and nursery now uses the library to choose books to take home and also to read for pleasure or use for research in school,” added Mr Sutcliffe.

“The room is in constant use – from individuals and groups of children right up to whole classes.

“The children love using it and there were gasps of delight when they first saw the amazing wall art, sea of books and lovely new seating and working areas.”