School celebrates new reading oasis

Staff and pupils at St Ambrose Primary School have been celebrating the opening of their new library which was officially opened by the poet and author, Paul Delaney.

Tracy Moorcroft, acting deputy headteacher said: “It was a magnificent morning celebrating the opening of a fantastic space for our children to ‘get lost in a book’.

“At the beginning of last academic year this space was a classroom and our then library was a cramped space that was not very welcoming. At Easter, we decided to move our library into a bigger room and turn it into a place where our children wanted to read!

“We received a Reading Oasis grant from Liverpool Learning Partnership which was the start of the journey to our finished room!

“We have managed to use some of our existing furniture alongside the furniture received from the grant to create this wonderful space. It has been a real team effort, not just in school but with help from members of our community.

“A past pupil, Bernie Hollywood OBE put us in touch with Shaun Doran (FRC Group and Bulky Bob) who provided us with some pre-loved couches and tables. Two of our wonderful LSAs (Miss Gleave and Miss Owen) gave lots of their own time to add some fantastic art and design work to turn the space from a house to a ‘reading home’ adding simple touches like window art representing the names of our four houses (Roald Dahl, JK Rowling, Oliver Jeffers and Julia Donaldson).

“Thanks must go to our English lead, Mr Stinchcomb and Year 6 teacher, Miss Cusack who had the passion and drive to get the job done!

“As always in our school, the children are at the centre of all we do. Year 6 learned how to decoupage and turned some dull looking coffee tables into fabulous ‘book covers’ and on asking a Year 5 child how the nearly finished library could be improved, she suggested blue skies and clouds and in her words, we made ‘her wish come true!’”