Our Library

Our ‘Whare pukapuka’ ‘Library’ is a place for all students to enjoy reading, participate in lunchtime activities and a quiet space where you can make new friends. 

Our School Librarian is Whaea Rose Solomon who organises, promotes and provides a range of library books and other resources for teachers and students to access regularly. 

Our teachers visit the library each week at a scheduled time with their classroom. The purpose of library time is for students to develop an enjoyment for reading, to develop reading habits and lifelong learning in literacy. 

The school library is open at lunchtimes for different activities including puzzles, colouring in,  chess club, developing creative skills using lego, playing board games, reading a selection of new books and listening to new stories. 

We have specific spaces to use in our library 

• Upstairs is where you can talk and enjoy reading together, playing games and activities. 

• Downstairs is for our seniors to enjoy a quiet space to concentrate and read silently. This is a ‘no talking’ zone and we encourage our students to respect this space. 

Our Library Rules

• Years 1 – 3 can have 1 book to be kept in the classroom

• Years 4 – 6 can have 1 book to be kept in the classroom and 1 book to take home

• All books are issued for two weeks and returned back to school. 

• Everyone is responsible for taking care of our school library by putting the books back on the correct shelf, tidying up after we finish an activity and cleaning our space for the next classroom. 

Our Lost or Damaged books

• If a book is lost or damaged we encourage all children to let the teacher or school librarian know. We provide time for our students to look for any missing books and aim to find a solution if your child is unable to find the book. We ask parents and whaanau to remind their child to find a safe place for their book if they take it home. 

Other Initiatives and School Events 

• MBS Lego Kindness Boxes – Our school is provided with boxes of lego through the amazing ‘Kindness Collective’ and LEGO foundation to deliver the Kindness Cup and provide tamariki with opportunities to be inspired, be creative, be problem-solvers through our MBS values building kindness together. The Kindness Cup is given out to students who demonstrate these values of ‘Maanakitanga’ showing care, respect and kindness for others.

• National Library – We access a range of wonderful books from the National Library that are relevant to our Student Inquiry theme and student’s interest.

• Scholastic Book Fair – Each year we celebrate the Scholastic Book Fair and encourage our parents, whaanau and tamariki to purchase quality books which helps the school raise funds and this will go towards purchasing new resources for the school library. 

• Kainga Pukapuka – This is a project for schools to promote and support home libraries where families can have their own ‘Kaainga Pukapuka’. These boxes of books are culturally specific e.g. Samoan Books for a Samoan Family and given for free to schools to give out to 10 families of pacific heritage. This project is funded by Oceania Literacy Trust. 

• Reading with Roka the Dog – We had the privilege of having Roka the dog come into school as part of reading therapy with tamariki with Roka’s owners. 

• Author Visits – We have inspiring authors who visit MBS and share their passion such as Kiwa Hammond an author and passion for Te Reo was able to inspire and engage our tamariki through story telling.