Amy Jeffrey is part of the Hull Schools Library Service that won the Culture and Creativity Award at our 2025 Seminar. Here she tells us about the work and successes of the scheme in and around Hull.
 

Introducing the Hull Schools Library Service

Hull Schools Library Service (SLS) is a perfect blend: we are a team of six, comprising of two members with a library background who have worked in libraries for a combined total of 50 years, and four ex-teachers, all of whom have had subject responsibility for reading. We are based in Hull but cover the surrounding areas, because we understand that not all schools have the benefit of access to an SLS in their area. Over the the past six years we have developed dramatically, and I’d now call ourselves a ‘learning service’, utilising teacher consultation and the expertise of the team to shape the services and resources we offer. It also helps four the team used to be service users! 

Explaining the main roles of Hull SLS

If it has anything to do with getting young people reading, we do it! We offer all of the loaning services most SLS offer – library loans, books full of curriculum-based non-fiction, artefact boxes, class reads etc - but utilising the knowledge, skills and expertise of the whole team, we offer a wide range of other curriculum-based resources, such as our Science Experiment Kits. Providing teachers with CPD opportunities and consultancy-based services is so important to us, not to mention a huge number of reading for pleasure initiatives. 

 

The importance of engaging readers

Children and young people need to see themselves in the texts they are reading but also see the lives of others in those too. We love to help schools rewrite their reading curriculums so children can see themselves represented in the books they are reading. The demands on teachers are huge: they are so busy and can’t be experts in everything. This is where we come in. Our knowledge of books is invaluable to our schools. We have worked with lots of them to create ‘Reading for Pleasure’ spines where children can simply enjoy the humour, the excitement and the adventure these books bring. If a child doesn’t enjoy the texts they have been set in guided reading, where is the space for reading for sheer enjoyment? We encourage all of our teachers to make room for Reading for Pleasure. In addition to this, we also assist in the mapping of guided reading texts across all year groups, ensuring that those books are of exceptional quality and ensure progression across the academic year and year groups. With the introduction of the recent Writing Framework we are now starting to work with schools to ensure they have access to the best examples of stories with fantastic cliffhangers, or portals, for instance. 

 

Engaging children through book awards

We love our book award campaign, especially the Picture Book Award, which was introduced three years ago: children read one of the five shortlisted books each day in National Storytelling Week and vote on the Friday for their favourite. When the winner is announced, we organise a tour with the winning author and/or the illustrator, giving 3–6-year-olds their first taste of author visits! This award gives the children a purpose for their reading, and their first taste of democracy! All the texts on these shortlists are wonderful, allowing children to join in with the storytelling. Quite a few have morals too, providing children lots of opportunities for ‘book talk.’

We will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the KS2 and KS3 book award in 2027. These run from January to June, accompanied by a social media campaign and author tour with all shortlisted authors. Children read the shortlist, complete an activity diary alongside (which gains them an Arts Award) and then vote for their favourite at the live voting event held at The Big Malarkey Festival, Hull Libraries schools’ and families’ literature festival. 

Giving children the chance to choose

All of the reading for pleasure initiatives we run involve pupil consultation, evaluation and feedback that shapes the development of them. We invite classes to choose stock for their book corners and libraries and we always offer children choices about what we read in our Book Club sessions. They are not about comprehension – they are about reading together, stopping at the funny bits and having a laugh – though sometimes the texts they choose are more serious, offering more opportunities for discussion and debate. Giving children the autonomy to choose what they read is imperative in creating readers for pleasure.

Involving local authors

An important role for us is helping children with those choices and providing opportunities for them to meet lots of different authors is key to that. When you go into many supermarkets you see a pattern of similar books available to buy. Unless children are taken to a bookshop, their exposure might not be very wide. We do a lot of work on improving teachers’ subject knowledge for reading to help with text choice. There is such a diverse range of fantastic reading material out there – we see making this known to schools as one of our most vital roles.

Famous authors are still incredibly valuable in driving a reading for pleasure culture in our schools and we analyse public library trends and listen to our young people who tell us what they are reading. Jacqueline Wilson remains extremely popular, and we were thrilled to be able to host her at Hull New Theatre, where she spoke to a sold-out audience of 1200 pupils. She said she felt like a rockstar! 

Connecting young people to their local literary heritage is of increasing importance in creating readers for pleasure. We have some exceptional authors from Hull, and opportunities to meet them helps to challenge the belief some young people have that you need to live in a big city, like London, to become a successful author. We have done a lot of work in schools with Phil Earle and Philippa Leathley to do just that.

Inspiring a love of non-fiction

Reading across the curriculum is hugely important. Children in this city love non-fiction, graphic novels and magazines. Consequently, we teamed up with ‘What on Earth’ and The Open University to give children access to their fabulous range of magazines, whilst evaluating the impact of this on overall reading engagement. Alongside this we also invited all schools to submit quiz teams to participate in a special ‘Hull Edition’ of the What on Earth National Quiz, using the magazines as study sources. This not only provided a purpose for reading, but also the opportunity to embed the social aspect of reading. Teams across the city competed in a grand final and the winners will now represent the city in the national final in London.