In a speech delivered at the Labour party conference, Chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to “providing a library in every single primary school in England by the end of this parliament”.
This new scheme should help to achieve the goal set by the Libraries for Primaries campaign, established in 2021, to ensure that every primary school in the UK has a library or dedicated library space.
This is a welcome development. Our research focuses on the value well-stocked libraries can provide to schools and pupils.
School libraries are a vital resource for enriching learning across the curriculum. They provide graduated texts to support learners from the very start of their reading journeys and give children access to a wealth of information, ideas, perspectives and stories.
This investment comes at a time when reading for pleasure is rapidly decreasing. According to a 2025 survey by the National Literacy Trust, only a third of children aged eight to 18 enjoy reading in their free time. Government data shows that 25% of pupils leave primary school unable to read at the level expected.
Some school libraries are very well stocked and are inviting spaces for children to read and share books. However, these spaces need constant investment to keep them up to date and relevant with high-quality texts. Doing so can be difficult for many schools whose budgets are tight.
School library services
To keep pace with developments in children’s book publishing is a substantial undertaking. Schools need to ensure that within their staff team there is sufficient knowledge and expertise to manage and maintain a vibrant library collection. It is also important that school libraries are aligned with the curriculum. Libraries should be an inclusive resource for communities of children with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and learning needs.
Many people don’t know that school libraries can draw on the resources and expertise of local School Library Services to keep their stock up to date and changing on a regular basis. They are typically funded and run by local authorities and employ trained librarians who can help schools run their own libraries. However, our research has shown that they are not available in all areas of England, and they are not financially secure in the long term.
School libraries can be refreshed every term by new stock borrowed from the School Library Services, curated by expert librarians. For example, the Leeds School Library Service serves 180 primary schools. It delivered 9,514 boxes of resources throughout the academic year 2022–23.
School Library Services have a wider range of books and resources than a single school could hold. As items borrowed from School Library Services are returned after a set period and then shared with other schools, they offer a model of library resourcing that is more sustainable that a single investment in a school library stock update. One teacher we spoke to said: “You don’t want 30 books to store, you want to use them and send them back and get 30 different ones. I think that’s a huge benefit.”
Some School Library Services help schools to set up their libraries, reorganise them and select great quality texts so that their libraries are current, appealing and easy to manage. School Library Services typically employ specialist children’s librarians with an understanding of the local area, and in some instances can even provide artefacts such as objects and costumes to further stimulate learning. Investment is needed in these services to ensure that they can replenish stock and train new school library specialists.
The wide choice of reading material a library provides gives children more opportunity to find a book they connect with than, for instance, a classroom reading corner. Being able to find a book that they want to read is important to becoming an engaged reader.
Some children will want to read about their favourite video game, others may be more interested in sport, and some will relish the opportunity to delve into a fantasy world of imagination. Talking about the children in their class, a teacher we interviewed said that a good choice of books “spurred some of them on to actually start reading”. Another teacher reported that school libraries “helped promote reading in school because kids have had more access to books”.
The renewed focus on school libraries is long overdue and we look forward to seeing the benefits that schools will reap from this new funding. But in addition to investment directly in primary school libraries in the short term, financial commitment to strengthening School Library Services will also pay dividends for future generations of child readers.
Lucy Taylor has received funding from UK Literacy Association, and the Association of Senior Education Librarians (ASCEL) via Arts Council England (ACE) for projects related to this topic.
Paula Clarke has previously received funding from the UK Literacy Association, and the Association of Senior Education Librarians (ASCEL) via Arts Council England (ACE), for projects related to this topic.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
