The final report School Libraries in the UK: a worthwhile past, a difficult present – and a transformed future? concludes that the vision and support of senior management is vital to success. It is crucial that school management recognise the difference that a good school library can make.
Currently, it is not a statutory requirement for schools in England to have a school library. Making school libraries and librarians statutory would be a big help in securing the vital role that libraries can play in enhancing teaching and learning.
Professor Stephen Heppell said: “The evidence continues to accumulate that libraries – and their librarians – lie absolutely at the heart of 3rd millennium learning organisations: a place for scholarship, a place to escape into adventures, a place of discovery, a place to share and explore, a place for deep thought, a place for surprise, and above all else a place absolutely without limits. The best schools have libraries at their centres not as some sad throwback to an earlier age but as a clear and evocative prototype of what ambitious learning might look like in this century of learning.”
