After being without a permanent library for a number of years, Hermitage Primary School in Tower Hamlets was awarded £60,000 from the Aldgate & Allhallows Foundation towards the building of a new permanent library for its students.
The library offers reading resources and ICT to pupils and their families through extended opening times, and with solar panels incorporated into the construction and a thermally efficient design, it was built with its carbon footprint in mind.
The services that libraries provide, whether at a school or in the community, create important opportunities for learning, support literacy, the acquisition of knowledge, help foster new ideas and engender a love of reading.
Denise Jones and Richard Foley (Chair and Chief Executive of the Foundation, respectively) spoke and marked the opening of the new library in a short ceremony on the 13th July 2021. They were joined by Zoe Howe, Head Teacher, (who was retiring at the end of the term), Polly Jones, Chair of Governors, Senior staff and pupils, who performed a selection of stories for the visitors, as well as representatives from the Tower Hamlets School Library Service.
The Foundation hopes that this new building will be a space of learning to benefit children in Tower Hamlets for many years to come.