Saviour Pirotta, playwright and author of the Golden Horseman of Baghdad, opens Baildon school library following their outstanding fundraising efforts and phonics success.
Baildon C of E Primary School has consistently earned increasingly fabulous results in the government phonics screening test over the past 4 years. The lastest results ranking in the top 2% in the country. A truly amazing achievement!
The school’s commitment and drive to ensure that pupils leave school with a love of literature and a strong understanding of early reading is one of the biggest priorities. Following 18 months of intense fundraising from the PTFA, parents and the local community and a huge £15,000 later the school were finally able to plan, order and approve the installation of the brand new, state of the art library, bringing it well and truly into the 21st Century.
Saviour Pirotta, a hugely successful playwright and author, was due to visit the school to run several workshops and was so impressed with the schools efforts that he agreed to officially open the new library. Saviour is a maltese-born British author, who wrote many of his novels in the café of Salts Mill including the schools current text; ‘The Golden Horseman of Baghdad’. He was incredibly impressed with the enthusiasm of the staff and children and was in awe at the clearly evident love of literature throughout school.
Emma Jasper, Chair, The Church School Baildon PTFA said:
“In September 2021 it was agreed with school that after 15 years our library needed to be shown a little bit of love. It was time to develop a peaceful and inspiring space for our children to learn in, our staff to teach in, plus give our lovely books a new home. The goal was to create a library where our children felt safe and comfortable, where they could immerse themselves in new stories, explore different subjects and fully embrace the love of reading. Our PTFA focused all fundraising efforts towards raising £15,000. We encouraged parents and carers to join our registered fundraising schemes, we launched our “Buy a Brick” campaign and we held discos, fairs and many other events for our children and their families to enjoy. We were also very grateful to receive a generous donation from DENSO Marston and match funding from Lloyds Banking group. In January 2023 we were delighted to announce that we had reached our target. We could not have achieved this without the continuous support from parents and carers, extended families, our children, our devoted school staff, our committee, and our army of PTFA helpers! Our new library is a beautiful space and we are proud to have been able to make this possible for all our children and staff. “
Katie Savage, Head Teacher at Baildon C of E Primary School, said:
“We are incredibly grateful for the fantastic work of our PTFA in fundraising for our wonderful new library. Together, we have created a reading hub at the heart of our school building, which will inspire our next generation on readers.”
Carol Dewhurst OBE, Chief Executive Officer at Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust, added:
“The success of the phonics results and fundraising efforts highlights the fantastic work of every staff member and pupil at Baildon C of E Primary School. All our academies strive to provide high quality education and embed high aspirations in our pupils so that every child can fulfil their academic potential and accomplish their individual goals. To see that reflected in this achievement today is outstanding.
“BDAT is a forward-thinking, professional learning community that is dedicated to the development of excellence in learning, both for our pupils and for the adults who serve and teach them.”