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12 LIBRARY
The Library – Making Readers Of Everyone
Reviews of the Bancroft’s in
The
Good Schools Guide
have picked
up that our library is a proper old
fashioned library – walls lined with
books and tables crowded with
journals – not a glorified IT suite.
Bancroft’s is incredibly fortunate to
have fantastic librarians; not only
will they order books upon request,
but they also use their in-depth
knowledge of the library stock to
recommend books. Keen readers
appreciate the fact that Mrs Squire
and Mrs Houghton get to know the
literary tastes of the pupils and are
always ready with suggestions of
works to try.
In addition, our librarians are always
developing new incentives to encourage
everyone to read. The phenomenal success
of Harry Potter Week for the Thirds is down
to hard work and meticulous planning from
our librarians. They set pupils with reading
challenges, arrange inter form quizzes and
invite authors, such as Julia Golding and
Chris Priestley, to speak to pupils. Some
recent challenges have been Bookopoly – the
librarians made a board with book related
streets, such as Privet Drive, and colour
coded them in groups with each group having
a literary genre. The challenge this term is
Journey Through Time; pupils are encouraged
to read books from different time zones
either written in or set in that era. Running
alongside that is the literary zoo: read a
book with an animal in it and gather as many
different animals for your zoo.
World Book Day this year is on March 7 and
will be marked with a competition to flip a
classic to a comic: portray a scene from a
classic in comic book format. The library will
also have a book tasting event with a menu
of new books and a specials board to be
sampled whilst sipping butterbeer (or similar)
and nibbling on book cakes and marmalade
sandwiches. Every day there will be a quick-
fire quiz and the first tutor group to answer
book related questions will get a chocolaty
prize.
Regular visitors to the library will be familiar
with the changing displays in which Mrs
Squire and Mrs Houghton show off their
indisputable artistic talents. These displays
change regularly to mark seasonal events
(Christmas or Valentine’s Day) or to tie in
with themes, such as upcoming International
Woman’s Day in March. Mrs Houghton
was awarded a prize by Softlink (our library
management system) for her displays in
the Prep School Library. The displays of
literature, artefacts and biographies which
were on show for Remembrance Sunday
were the work of Mrs Squire. Surely few
can resist the temptation of a literary treat
presented in such an appetising way.