Shakespeare Junior school aims to provide a wide range of literature for pupil to learn from. We aim to provide children with the reading skills they will need to access a range of reading materials. We encourage children to read for pleasure and to find out information to support their learning (Literacy Policy 2013).

We are very proud of our well stocked library and are lucky enough to have a designated library manager who works part time at the school. All the children are given a timetabled slot each week to visit the library and we encourage parents to support them in remembering to bring their library loans in on this day each week so that they are able to change it if they wish. Their allotted sessions are listed below.

• Year 3: Tuesday
• Year 4: Friday
• Year 5: Thursday
• Year 6: Wednesday

We have a wide variety of books and resources for the children to borrow and these include audio and picture books as well as fiction and non-fiction. All our books can be borrowed for 21 days and each child can take two home at any one time. Reminders for overdue books are regularly sent to each class before we send letters home to try and recover those books which are considerably overdue. Only when books have been missing for several months do we ask parents for a 50% contribution towards the cost of the lost book as a last resort. As I’m sure you appreciate, we lose many books each year costing the school a great deal of money and this contribution towards those that are lost helps us to replace stock.

What book should I choose

• 1 stripe is for children who are struggling to read and contains very simple text to gain confidence in the key concepts of reading.

• 2 stripe is for those who are beginning to get a better grasp of reading. They range from simple linked sentences to short paragraphs

• 3 stripe are for improved readers who are beginning to read fluently. They are proper chapter books, but stick to simpler words, which can be easily sounded out if unfamiliar.

• Books with no stripes are free readers for confident children who can cope with a variety of tricky words and concepts.

• Yellow T stickers are for those in year 6 only. Some of these books may contain teenage content and therefore are only suitable for children with a mature nature.