Doncaster Academy gets £10,000 grant to boost library shelves

New funding from the Foyle Foundation, worth £10,000, has boosted shelf stock at Astrea Academy Woodfields’ library, with new Japanese graphic novels, Holywood blockbuster books and prizewinning literature.

The grant will enable the former Balby Carr school to enhance reading for students at all levels, with texts to improve confidence, a greater range of popular fiction to boost reading for pleasure and more challenging literature to inspire advanced readers.

Longer opening hours and parent-student reading sessions will be used to encourage community use of the lending library; while a new student book group will become the ‘voice’ that informs future selections.

The additional funding will also allow the school to invest in its accelerated reader programme for year 7s, with attractive books and weekly ‘library lessons’ in which the students will be encouraged to browse the shelves and to develop a love for reading.

Andrew Marshall, Vice Principal, Astrea Academy Woodfields, said: “Significant, £30,000 investment by the trust in 2019 gave us a fabulous new library space – and now, thanks to this grant from the Foyle Foundation, we can stock our shelves with an exciting range of books that will appeal to all our students.

From literature-inspired film-book series like Divergent to critically acclaimed titles like The Handmaid’s Tale, comics to academic magazines, we hope the library will become a hub of exploration, learning and enjoyment.”

Woodfields is just one Astrea school in Doncaster to receive funding from the Foyle Foundation, with Denaby Main and Kingfisher primary academies also receiving generous library grants.

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