St Clare of Assisi’s Library plays a significant role in the life of students. Amongst the comfortable couches, reading pods and soft carpets, students of all ages can be found with their eyeballs glued to the pages of the various novels that fill the bookshelves around them. It gives them the unique opportunity of being transported to another world, one filled with magic and imagination, one that doesn’t involve the blue light of a screen.

However, in the age of digital media, sometimes this enrichment ends outside of school time hours. Many children have become physically attached to their tablet, laptop, or home television from the moment they leave the school yards. We are committed to ensuring our students do not fall into the trap of the increasingly enticing and under stimulating content that may regress both their education and emotional sensitivity.

International studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have concluded that children who spent two hours on non-educational screen time scored significantly lower in both language and thinking tests. Contrastingly, those who spent the same time reading, scored astoundingly higher in cognitive development, social and cultural perception, and growth of empathetic and emotional aptitude.

Our library offers a safe and comfortable space for students to develop these lifelong skills. Outside of the teaching staff, parents too are in a great position to encourage reading habits in their children. For our younger students, stories read at bedtime by parents may include ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, ‘Just So Stories’, ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’, and ‘The Giving Tree’ – all of which are wonderfully sweet stories that include values such as friendship and kindness. For our older students, authors such as Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, C. S. Lewis, and Jeff Kinney are highly recommended for their exciting imagery and inventiveness that will take our children on an immersive and enchanting adventure. Katherine Austin, our wonderful Librarian is always available to help your children pick quality texts in which they can be transported to another time, place and world.

There are many wonderful sources of education that can be found online and on television and children, like us, sometimes need to switch off for a bit and have some downtime. Outside of this time, St Clare of Assisi encourages us all to continue our lifelong learning through the wondrous joys of reading.

Yours in Faith,

Jo Reed

Assistant Principal (Acting)