Make 2005 the year you tap into the free resource that is your local public library and its possibilities for homework clubs, book groups, and imaginative work with hard-to-reach young people and families. You will aso be giving your pupils a stake in their community as well as access to a pool of adults to support their reading. If that’s too much to organise in the first fortnight back, invite a librarian to assembly; a new briefing pack on public library partnerships with schools makes it clear how much they love being invited.

Enjoying Reading: public library partnerships with schools, launched this week at the British Library, is intended mainly to brief and inspire public library staff, but the case studies will also persuade schools that anything is possible (especially if you still have a school library service, but even if you haven’t). It can be downloaded from the Reading Agency’s website: www. readingagency.org.uk (under “Enjoying Reading” in the Download Centre). The section on “Overcoming the barriers” has several responses to the “no time” argument, but the one that schools may have heard before is “find enthusiasts who will make time”. No problems there, then.