TEWKESBURY

Many congratulations to the Tewkesbury team, led by Anne Careless, on their winning entry: ‘Building Literary Confidence at Queen Margaret School’.

Debby Thacker, Chair of Judges described the Tewkesbury project as ‘.An example of a library answering the needs of a community’. St Margaret’s is ‘a school where half the students are Pupil Premium and a third have special educational needs or disabilities. As the school builds its reading culture, the library either visits the school or, at the moment, provides pop-up libraries while the library is being refurbished . . . It is these conversations between children and librarians around books that have been so wonderful to see.’ For Debbie it was all summed up when she visited with the judges and was chatting to some of the Year 6 children as they chose their books: ‘Two girls wanted the same book and there was some talk about alternatives that one of them might choose. One of the girls looked at me with a huge smile and a sudden sense of discovery and said, “I know! I can go to the library and borrow it another time.” . . . Libraries are enriching spaces, safe spaces, and now that heating bills are going up . . . they will be warm spaces too.’

Left to right above: the Tewkesbury team with Damon Galgut; Harriet Alexander (winner of the Young Persons Award); Libby Peach and Kate Thomson, representing their father, David Vaisey.