The Society of Authors recently attended the presentation of Great School Libraries report into the state of school libraries and their provision in the UK: Equal futures? An imbalance of opportunities. The report’s findings are concerning, but the campaign’s call to action – to bring back school libraries and access to librarians in every UK school – is timely and welcome.
Great School Libraries began as a three-year evidence-based campaign. Now in its second phase, the campaign is engaging with heads, teachers and governors and raising awareness with decision makers on the impact and value of school library staff, whilst empowering school library staff to evidence this themselves.
As a trade union representing all types of writers, many of our members create books for children and are represented in our Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group. Working closely with this group, for whom school visits are integral, we know only too well the difference a great school library has on education. In 2017, we set up our Reading for Pleasure Awards to promote the vital work schools do in this area.
The SoA firmly supports the Great School Libraries campaign, as we know that access to a school library has a profound effect on children’s education. Properly funded and facilitated, the school library is where literacy and the spirit of independent inquiry are instilled. These are integral to every aspect of learning. It is where collaborations between departments happen, offering gateways from one subject to another, and crucially where a love of reading is fostered. There is a wealth of research to suggest that this also aids every aspect of learning as well as increasing happiness and empathy.
The recent report by Great School Libraries, while positively highlighting schools where libraries are ‘changing to become multi-functional platforms of teaching and learning’, showed that this is not reflected across England and across the different school sectors, due to financial pressures on councils to cut school libraries and budgets.
Schools that have a high percentage of children eligible for Free School Meals are least likely to have access to a school library or dedicated library staff. There are also significant regional inequalities, with rural areas less likely to have access to school libraries. Two thirds of school libraries in Scotland have no budget at all and pupils in Northern Ireland are the least likely to have access to a school library or designated budget.
65% of primary schools reported that they do not have a designated library budget and the proportion of secondary schools with a library on site dropped from 96% in 2019, to 86%.
Together with Great School Libraries, we are asking parents and teachers to join us in calling on the government for change.
Write to your local MP
The best way to apply the necessary pressure for change is by writing to your local MP, to ask that they make school library access and provision a political priority.
You can download a template letter to write to your local MP from the Great School Libraries website.
Below is our letter to our local MP in Holborn, Keir Starmer.
I think this campaign is important. One adult employed in every school with the sole task of enthusing each and every child who enters the school library about different genres of books would do wonders for children’s motivations to read. And it is far more cost effective to employ one librarian for a school than continue to employ a number of teachers for ‘special needs’ classes (or whatever they’re called today) when the problem children usually have with reading in ‘literacy’ classes today isn’t, actually, inside them. The problem is structural – that all the fun of reading has been… Read more »