Less than a third of primary schools regularly visit their local library, report shows

Islington’s Central Library in Holloway. Image: Islington Council

Islington Council has warned that the number of primary schools visiting their local libraries has fallen in the last year, as many report struggling with staffing and scheduling issues.

Documents published ahead of Monday’s children and young people scrutiny committee reveal that between September 2023 and July 2024, only 18 of the borough’s 55 primary schools took regular trips.

Several of these schools say they are finding it difficult to fit visits into their timetable, or do not have enough staff and parents on hand to facilitate them, the report adds.

Lewis Carroll Children’s Library was the most popular, hosting young visitors from Blessed Sacrament, St Andrew’s, Vittoria and Winton schools, while Finsbury Library notably held zero primary school visits in that same period.

Despite this, data shows library visits in the borough overall have risen in the last quarter, and overall are steadily climbing back up to pre-pandemic levels of more than a million per year.

This comes after the Town Hall made headlines when it removed fines from local libraries and waived outstanding fees, in a bid to help with living costs and make the services more accessible.

The council’s culture strategy for 2024-30, ‘Imagine Islington’, stressed the importance of library visits and noted that they and other cultural opportunities were known to be “out of reach” for many local people.

“It’s not just about money, it’s also about time, poverty, location, culturally appropriate activities and not knowing what is on,” it stated.

To help drive up children’s enthusiasm, the council has in recent years launched initiatives like its local ‘bookstart’ program, giving out free packs to kids aged between 0 and 12 to foster a love of reading from an early age.

In 2022, councillors promoted the borough’s ‘summer reading challenge’ to all primary schools in the borough.

At the time, the borough’s reading champion, Cllr Valerie Bossman-Quarshie, said young people had told her how much they enjoyed visiting Islington’s “brilliant” libraries.

“They really are a vital resource for children, who can learn so much about the world through books.”