Hurst Prep's librarian honoured in the School Library Association's Librarian of the Year Awards

The School Library Association write: The SLA School Librarian of the Year Award celebrates the essential work that school librarians are doing at a time when school libraries are being closed at an alarming rate. We were impressed by the passion and dedication of the librarians we visited and the innovative and inspirational ways in which they bring books and an enthusiasm for learning into the heart of the school and into the lives of children. We had a hard job selecting a short list and feel that everyone on the Honour list should be celebrated.”

Denise Reed, Hurst Prep School's librarian, is one of only six school librarians who have been honoured by the SLA in this year's Librarian of the Year Awards.

More about Denise and her role in Hurst Prep

Denise qualified in South Africa (after a degree in Zulu) and worked for the museums and archives service in Rhodesia, later Zimbabwe, until political upheaval forced her to move to the UK in 1983 with her husband and the first of her three children. "My background in libraries had been very specialist; we were used by academics and researchers who knew we were there. I never had to think in terms of drawing children in. But when you do draw them in, it’s lovely."

She retrained as a nursery nurse ("The specialist library jobs involved commuting and that wasn’t possible with a young family") and was deputy head of a nursery school at the time she applied for a job as a nursery nurse at Hurst’s Pre-Prep school. "They saw on my CV that I was a qualified librarian and the Prep School was keen to employ me to help improve their library provision."

So for one day a week (she is a teaching assistant in reception Monday to Thursday) Denise has her dream job: "I have always loved books and reading and| I love working with children. Every day is different and I love the hustle and bustle and their enthusiasm. Being able to match the right book to the right person gives me such a buzz." Compared with being in the classroom, she says, her relationship with pupils in the library is "more relaxed, you can really get to know [children] and share their little ups and downs as well as their favourite novel".

Denise spends at least 10 hours a week in the library, sharing an assistant (John Partis, seen here on the right) with the Senior School. Her dream is to run a joint library for the Pre-Prep and Prep schools full time, and be able to see through all of the projects that she would like to initiate. The major annual author festival that Hurst organises and to which it invites other local Prep Schools, for example, had its genesis in one of her initiatives.

Hurst Prep is a selective, independent day school with flexi-boarding for 240 pupils (60 per cent boys). The school is expanding and over the summer Denise moved into a significantly bigger and lighter library. “As a result, we’ve now got room to present our collections more effectively, such as Ready Steady Go for younger readers."

Denise runs as many reading promotion activities as time permits, such as Roald Dahl Day and National Poetry Day. The Summer Reading Challenge has been particularly successful, involving between 80 and 90 per cent of pupils. A key goal, she says, is "persuading Years 7 and 8 to keep reading – librarians in state schools have the same challenge. At that age they have a lot of homework, and become involved in many other activities such as music, drama and sport.

"Denise’s work on information literacy is valued throughout the prep school and also in the senior school where pupils transfer in Year 9. She has introduced the Big 6 strategy for information literacy – "we are one of the few junior schools to use it" – which the senior school now plans to adopt.

She calls on her school library service for advice and last year she started the Librarians in Independent Prep Schools in South East England support group, feeling that prep school librarians needed one ("a lot of us are unqualified, most are part-time and most have much less support than I do in terms of budget"). LIPSSEE now has 35 member schools – and some of those members drew the SLY Awards to Heather Beeby's (Denise’s Head teacher) attention. As a result, she was nominated for this prestigious award and was honoured as one of the six finalists.

Denise is thrilled with the honour"It is not very often" she said "that a junior school librarian is shortlisted for the award so I am very proud and absolutely delighted to have made this year's Honours List. To have my work acknowledged in this way is just amazing! But I could not have achieved all that I have without the support and cooperation of both the staff and pupils here at Hurst Prep, so I have a lot to thank them for".