The Hathershaw College Library
How the library works
The Hathershaw College Library is a calm and tranquil
reading environment for students and staff who attend the Hathershaw college. It is a bright room, which overlooks the peace garden, where you can lose yourself in one of the hundreds of books that the library has to offer. Students can come in and choose a book, check it out with the Librarian and they will get the book for two weeks. If after two weeks they are still reading it, they can request more time. This time is usually granted, unless another student has reserved the book.
There is a book recommendations jar where students can suggest books they would like to see in the library and there is an up and coming book review folder, where students can have a look through to see what their peers have read and recommended. Although the library is calm and tranquil, there is always lots going on, there are different clubs every lunchtime and activities such as colouring or word searches to be completed. There is always a competition running too where students can win e-praise points or other prizes. We also have author visits and as are part of the Pinnacle Learning trust , we often take students to OSFC to participate in their author visits where students can listen to the authors story and ask them questions direct.
Lunchtime Clubs
Monday - Games Club
Tuesday - Reading Club
Wednesday - Homework Club
Thursday - Writing Club
Friday - Wellbeing Club
What resources are available?
There are seven computers in the library, this is made up of three touch screens computers and four desk laptop computers. Student’s can come in when the library is open and use the computers to do their homework for Sparx Maths or google classroom, they can also check their e-praise and buy items from the e-praise shop.
We cater for every need in the Hathershaw library, we have a selection of all different genres such as Fantasy, Mystery, Adventure, Non-fiction, Poetry and Classic books amongst many other genres and titles. There is also a Biography section where students can learn about different people lives. We have an up and coming Manga section, which is growing by the day and proving to be extremely popular. We also have books for Visually impaired students and dyslexia friendly books for students to check out and read. There is always a display with suggested books, meaning that students get lots of help if they are not sure what to read.
Library lessons
We have KS3 library lessons for the students in year 7 and year 8.
How this works is the students come to the Library during a set English lesson with their English teacher, for the first half of the lesson, they return their old book, choose a new one and sit and read. Then the teacher will take the majority of the class back to the classroom to read the book they are reading as a class and six students will stay behind in the Library and read the class reader with a bit of extra support. This is the same for every English class in year 7 and year 8.
Library assistants
There are 15 students across the school who give up their social times to come and help out in the library, this ranges from them putting books back onto the shelves, helping students with their homework or helping to set up displays and books reviews. These students have applied to become student Librarians and some of the year 9 students, use this towards their Duke of Edinburgh volunteering. We are incredibly proud of these students, they are real role models to the other students using the library. If students wish to apply to become a student librarian they should call into the library to pick up an application form.
Reading for pleasure
At the Hathershaw Library our main focus is on literacy and part of this is reading for pleasure. Our promise to our students is that we have the most recent and up to date titles for them to read. The genres are all varied so there is definitely something for everyone, our Librarian and student librarians are always on hand to offer their knowledge regarding reading material and try to match the right book to the student.
Useful Websites
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Reading List
