A primary school in Kearsley will be opening a new library in their schoolyard to improve literacy.

St John’s CE Primary School is planning to open the library in a shed in the school yard.

Reading lead and year six teacher, Helen Schofield, aged 35, has been organising this new project.

She said: “It’s like a shed in the yard, an outdoor library on the grounds. Where we are is very deprived, a lot of children don’t go to a library and don’t have books at home.

“Having this shed in the yard, we’ll have baby books all the way to adult books.”

There are plans for the library to potentially become available for local people.

Helen said: “Well, it will initially be for the school. There’s a few safeguarding issues having other people on the premises but eventually we should be having the gates open when kids aren’t around so people can use the library.

“We’ve had a shed donated which arrived last week, so we’re looking to open it by September.

“I think it will boost their love of reading.

“There’s a group of year six children who like to read and just end up sitting on the floor at break times, so this should hopefully give them somewhere to go.”

Helen will have some help running the library, however.

She said: “We have reading ambassadors at the school, their job is to promote reading across the school.

“We’ve discussed it and they’re going to help run it on a day-to-day basis.

“There will be a box outside for donated books and returns, and they’ll be making sure it’s clean and tidy.

“The group of kids I’ve got will be better than me at it!”

The school will need book donations for the library, however.

Helen said: “So through the powers of social media I put a post out for donations and was inundated.

“The shed is bigger than we expected though, so we’ll need more.”

If you’d like to help St Johns with book donations then you can call the school on 01204 333101 or email at office@st-johns-kearsley.bolton.sch.uk.