Pupils dressed up as their favourite book characters to mark the opening of a new library.

Swingate Primary School in Lordswood spent £9,000 on books and literature to fill out the reading den.

It used resources from around the school to create the space and now hopes to enter competitions to win new material to keep the library updated.

The school used the opening on Wednesday to celebrate a belated World Book Day named 'Swingate Book Week.'

Reception and nursery children dressed up as characters from their favourite books, while KS1 and KS2 pupils came dressed as words for a vocabulary parade.

PA to the head Emma White said: "We have been waiting a long time to have a new library filled with brand new literature for our children.

"We bought new picture books, graphic novels as well as a range of non-fiction books to grab their attention and inspire everyone to read.

"It feels incredible to now have a space that can develop our children's love of reading as well as an area that the classes can use to share their favourite stories and authors.

Pupils at the school in Whimbrel Walk take part in daily 'Swingate's Love of Reading' (SLOR) sessions to help develop skills such as inference, decoding, predicting and retrieval.

Throughout the building there are reading hubs for children to visit, – including the 'Space Station', which houses literature relating to the cosmos, a 'Sport Centre' and 'Culture Corner.'

"At Swingate we feel reading is really important and want it to be built into our whole curriculum and not just a stand-alone lesson," added Emma.

"We want our children to understand the importance of reading and want to have exciting areas around the school for them to enjoy books.

"And a big thank you to Mrs Dunwell, Mrs Pearce, Mrs McCormick, Mrs Davies and the rest of the Senior Leadership Team who worked extremely hard putting the new library together.

"At Swingate we have amazing families who have also supported us.

"Thanks to Mrs King for helping to scan all of the new books and Mr and Mrs Wilkes for donating a fantastic sign which spans the wall in our library."

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