At St Mary's, our library is a hub of learning, a community space, and a well-resourced facility for our students.

Literacy is a cornerstone of everything that happens at St Mary's and we are dedicated to creating and curating a space that encourages and supports a love of literacy, reading and books.

As our library slogan says: 

Our Librarian Mrs L Griffiths, (Mon, Thurs & Fri) along with Mrs T Peake and Mrs S Wardell (Tues, Weds) staff the library and make it a warm and inclusive space for all our students and staff.

After a recent student competition, the library had a redesign and overhaul including fresh art and paintwork, new resources, facilities and furniture.We are proud that our wonderful St Mary's students helped to improve this community space for all. 

Enjoy a look through the gallery below to get a feel for our welcoming library and find out more about the wide-ranging facilities on offer under the headings.

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Gallery

Library Catalogue

We have an expansive array of fiction and non-fiction titles available for students to borrow. Our librarian works closely with Herefordshire Library Service to ensure that the students at St Mary's have access to the most recent and most popular titles. These titles are carefully curated into areas of interest and our librarian and student librarians are always on hand with a recommendation or with help with finding a title.

Noticeboards keep students up to date with new arrivals and we follow worldwide events to open up new interests to students, recent examples include: poetry titles for World poetry day, green literature for climate change, bilingual titles for European Day of Languages to name a few.

Reading corner

Students at St Mary's are continually encouraged to develop a love of reading.

Literacy is at the heart of every subject and in order to achieve and attain well in any specialism, reading is essential. As we remind students: "We learn to read, then read to learn." At KS3, English lessons begin with 10 minutes of private reading to support the acquisition of language and develop reading comprehension skills. We expect that students complete private reading each day and all students should have reached the vital cornerstone of a reading age of 16 by the time they leave us in Y11 and complete their national exams - each GCSE requires students to be able to read at this level.

Comfortable surroundings, wide library catalogues, and welcoming staff make our library a haven for avid readers, and we encourage all students to develop a routine habit of reading quietly in a corner of our library – a joy in itself.

ICT

Our library is fully stocked with a suite of computers to support students completing their Reading Plus, revising online, completing homework or playing educational games. Staff are on hand to help students with queries and ICT support. Access to printing is available. 

 

Games

Chess, Chequers, UNO, quiz games and many more are available for our students to enjoy in their social times. We encourage the use of the library as a social space with clear boundaries. Students enjoy quiet games and develop their interpersonal and problem-solving skills. The Library is well-stocked with enjoyable activities and students are able to make requests and suggestions for new additions.

Revision Library

 

Careers Library

Student Librarians

Events

Homework

Interventions