Extension brings reading to life for pupils in Felpham

The works have created the first library rooms in decades at both Bishop Tufnell CoE infant and junior schools.

The books previously lined corridors in the neighbouring schools in Pennyfields.

Infant school headteacher Rosemary Appleby said: "The pupils say the new library is 'cool'. It's a lovely sunny area.

"Before, our library was in a corridor and you had to walk through it all the time."

The infant school has also gained a hot meals kitchen to serve dinners to both schools, a new staffroom and a new entrance.

At the junior school, the improvements have created a new classroom to take the total to 12 as well as a new entrance and suite of offices.

A new corridor runs the length of the school to replace a route which passed through the main hall among other rooms.

The junior school received two-thirds of the funding, which mostly came from the diocese, because its premises were built in the 1950s.

The infant school is some 20 years younger.

Shane Morton, the junior school's headteacher, said: "It feels like a completely different school. Everybody is so proud of it.

"The improvements have just lifted the whole school, though a lot of the classrooms are the same."

The 600 pupils at both schools gathered to watch the Bishop of Horsham, the Rt Rev Lindsay Urwin, bless the buildings on June 6, after he had cut a ribbon which symbolically joined both entrances.

"The building of schools matters a lot," he said. "There is not much more important than the making of a space where young people can flourish.

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