Category: News

Exciting new funding opportunities for primary school libraries have recently become available for schools in Tower Hamlets via the Literacy Trust’s ‘Libraries for Primaries‘ programme.

The offer for schools in 2026 includes 500 new books and a package of new library furniture worth over £850. There is also the possibility of larger amounts of funding.

The Literacy Trust and their funding partners will be prioritising

• Primary schools with no library at all
• Primary schools in urgent need of library rennovation

The Schools Library Services is working closely with the Literacy Trust to

• Help guide schools through the application proces
• Recommend schools for funding
• Advise schools on how to manage a new library and make it sustainable
• Provide additional top-up books to the school library for home-loaning

To help with this process, we’re inviting schools to complete the below survey about their library provision. We’ll use the contact details provided to get in touch about applying for the Libraries for Primaries programme.

The Tower Hamlets Schools Library Services collection is continually evolving and we need you to tell us what you’re using (and not using!) in your classrooms.

We’re circulating this survey because:

• We want to ensure that we’re sending the most appropriate resources to our library users
• We want to ensure that we’re investing in new resources that teachers want to use

The survey lists the main resource types that we stock in the library. Please rate each one indicating how essential having this type of resource in your classroom is to your work.

If you feel there’s something we don’t already stock that you think we should, then there’s the option to add this, too.

3^rd December 1951 – 4^th December 2022

Maggie has delivered our crates to schools for the Schools Library Service for the whole of the 21^st Century!  She was a one-woman whirlwind who delivered our crates, gardened, created amazing pottery, flew kites, and was a friend to us all.

Coming to London from Cornwall in the sixties, she first did an honours degree in Fine Art and Sculpture at Brighton University and was on first name terms with Terry Frost RA and other renowned artists.

She worked for Price Waterhouse Coopers for many years, combining art and IT in desktop publishing.

She came to the Schools Library Service as a self-employed woman with van and has been at our beck and call ever since and is known to every school admin team in the Borough, ever flexible, ever organising things as efficiently as possible.

Latterly, she also undertook the delivery of BookStart packs for the Early Years Team.

A knowledge fountain of plants and gardening, she looked after the PDC garden and browbeat the staff into watering and looking after it when she was not around.

She took up kite flying in 2008, a hobby that took her on jaunts to kite festivals around the world.

Always an artist at heart, she has us collecting packaging and materials that she recycled into wonderful pieces of art.  Over the years she had many exhibitions of her pottery and paintings in local venues.

Diagnosed with lung cancer in February this year, she was incredibly positive about her treatment and her future, but tumours developed in her head and on catching pneumonia, she was unable to fight the infection and passed away the morning after her 71st birthday.

She is survived by her two sisters, her brother and their families.

12^th June 1954 – 25^th October 2022

It is with deep deep sadness that we have to announce the sudden death in service of Sylvia Cummins, librarian with the Schools Library Service since 10^th June 2002.

Sylvia’s funeral was held on Tuesday 29th November at City of London Crematorium.

Sylvia joined the Schools Library Service in 2002, having previously worked for Haringey public libraries.  It was two days before her birthday and just prior to the start of the World Cup 2002 and, not being a football fan, immediately found herself keeping the service going whilst other members of staff, including the head of service, took toil in order to watch key matches.  She took it all in her stride but got her own back when Wimbledon started!   Over the years proved to be a dependable, warm, kind and considerate colleague and became a friend to us all. Her quiet ways belied her assertiveness and drive, and she excelled at encouraging others in the workplace to achieve and learn more.  A most superb listener, she was the person most of us turned to when needing to share a confidence or seek advice.  She knew so many secrets which she divulged to no-one.

She has been a key member of staff for over twenty years, instrumental in the day to day running of the library and latterly taking sole responsibility for managing the stock of the Schools Library Service and seeking out all the weird and wonderful resources that support the teaching of the curriculum.

As one of her sisters said, she did absolutely adore her job.  In the very dim and distant past she worked in the private sector briefly, but her heart was in public service, working with her community.  Education, libraries and bringing history to life were all her passions. She loved the incredible history, art and culture of the East End and was quite the ambassador for this in the service. Even whilst the borough was focussing on getting young people to look outside of Tower Hamlets, she was a voice that reminded us that people can still be allowed to be proud of where they live and grew up.  Last year she won for us a Heritage Lottery Grant to create local history resources for children, and these suitcases, along with all the other resources she has sought out, will be her legacy to the children of this Borough.

A staunch believer in equality and social justice, she has been a lifelong Labour voter and trade union member, and loving gardening, crosswords, walking and reading, had great taste in movies, had an allotment and was a member of a variety of walking groups and reading clubs.

Sylvia is survived by a brother and two sisters and their families.  Alongside her friends, they feel bereft by the suddenness of her death and the huge space she has left in their lives.

Sylvia seemed so fit and healthy, and she was the one who always encouraged us to eat fruit instead of biscuits at teatime! (Alison Rogans)

I worked with Sylvia earlier this year on the local history pack and found her so lovely and supportive to work with.    (Linda Barker)

Sylvia’s quiet, calm way of working, and encouraging others was quite unique, and will be keenly missed. She always had time for others, and to pass on very sound advice from her depth of reading and experience. I cannot imagine the SLS without her. (Giles Harrison)

Sylvia was a dedicated public servant, knowledgeable about her service, a local history enthusiast and a kind and calming presence. It was a pleasure to work with her.  (Tamsin Bookey)

She helped to develop the Service to Tower Hamlets schools because, like the rest of us, she believed in the value of what we were/are doing.  But I think I value her most for her calm and generous personality which contributed to the close-knit atmosphere of friendship which prevailed/s in the workplace.  (Judith Collins)

Revised 05/07/2021

Coronavirus and schools library resources FAQs

Q. What measures have been taken to ensure resources from the Schools Library Service are risk-free?

Guidance from the COVID-19 Guidance Cell of Public Health England’s National Infection Service, as advised to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 27 March 2020 states: –

• The risk from books covered in a plastic cover handled by someone who is a possible COVID-19 case is negligible after 72 hours.
• The risk from books with a cardboard/paper cover is negligible after 24 hours.

Resources returned to the Schools Library Services will be quarantined for 72 hours prior to handling by staff.

After resources are issued and packed, there will be a sticker on each crate delivered giving the date the resources were last handled. We advise that you follow your own organisation’s procedure when unpacking.

We will continue to follow these procedures after July 2021

Q. How long should books be quarantined for if they have been handled by someone who is a possible COVID-19 case?

Guidance from the COVID-19 Guidance Cell of Public Health England’s National Infection Service, as advised to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 27 March 2020 states: –

• The risk from books covered in a plastic cover handled by someone who is a possible COVID-19 case is negligible after 72 hours.
• The risk from books with a cardboard/paper cover is negligible after 24 hours.

Q. Where can I find a risk assessment template for school libraries?

CILIP and the School Library Association have produced guidelines and risk assessment templates for the safe opening of primary and secondary school libraries

CILIP, SLG & SLA (2020) COVID-19 Guidance for School Libraries. Available: https://www.cilip.org.uk/news/news.asp?id=506793

Example of how one primary school librarian is making books available to all classes

Select 120 – 200 books from the library for each classroom

On a set day each week, each pupil choses a book from this pool. They return the book 4 days later, which allows for a quarantine period of 72 hours until the next borrowing day. This may be calculated to allow children to read at home over the weekend or to keep books within the classroom space.

Sample timetable:

• Thursday: Pupils select a book or books
• Friday – Sunday: Reading period
• Monday morning: Books returned and put in box allocated as “quarantine bin”
• Monday – Wednesday: Quarantine period

Younger children borrowing picture books and early readers would take more than one book at a time to read during the loan period.

These pools of books could be regularly refreshed as needed or upon request.

Small groups of children in “bubbles” can be timetabled to visit the library. They should sanitise their hands before handling the books, and book covers can be cleaned with anti-bacterial wipes as necessary.

Anti-Racism Statement from Tower Hamlets Schools Library Service and HEC Global Learning Centre

June 2020

Tower Hamlets Schools Library Service and HEC Global Learning Centre have always placed racial justice at the heart of what we do.  Black perspectives and the global dimension to the curriculum are at the core of our collection and balanced representation is at the core of our event planning.

HEC Global Learning Centre exists to promote equality and social justice from a global perspective and has a proud history of projects, resources and training for schools to develop community cohesion, and is currently developing a CPD on Migration which will be available free to schools from September 2020 through the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning programme.

Teachers have a crucial role in educating children about the racial injustices of the past, and which continue to manifest in the present, enabling an understanding of the issues at stake and nurturing within all children a pride in their heritage.  We support this by providing teachers with the resources they need.  Every crate of resources we send out includes resources that present a Black or global dimension.  We provide classroom book collections and school libraries with a range of fiction so that children can find themselves in books and stories as well as use story to learn about the experiences and lives of others.  We ensure our recommended booklists include all aspects of diversity.  We can provide schools with authors, poets, storytellers from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.

We will renew our efforts to ensure we provide resources so that children in our schools can find themselves in books, can read about the history of the Black struggle, can celebrate the achievements of Black, Asian and other ethnic minority personalities, can understand their histories.

The Schools Library Service is closed to teachers at the moment, so we can’t invite teachers to come and browse our collection, but we do invite teachers to get in touch with SLS or your primary school librarian to discuss how we can help and visit our website for links to resources and booklists and with HEC to discuss how your school can get involved in projects and access free or reduced-cost training.