The Latymer School’s Library supports the aim of the school to provide a first-class, liberal education. We also provide an oasis of calm in a busy school environment; a place to read and study quietly. We have two libraries, the Ashworth Memorial Library and the Learning Resources Centre (LRC) that are well resourced to both support curriculum study and stretch students in their interests and passions.

The Ashworth Memorial Library is open to all pupils and houses both fiction, non-fiction and multimedia resources. The LRC is for Sixth Form study and currently houses textbooks and a reference collection and is also a place of study exclusively for A Level students.

The library is open:  
Monday – Wednesday: 8.15 - 4.30
Thursday – Friday: 10.30 - 2.30

The library is staffed by Ms Bugg (Librarian), Miss Yasmin (Library Assistant) and a team of Sixth Form volunteers.

The library promotes reading for pleasure throughout the whole school community, to foster an enjoyment of reading, and to encourage the students to keep exploring new horizons. We also work closely with departments across the school to provide books that compliment the curriculum and to extend reading and opportunities for the Sixth Form.

With reading at the heart of pupil’s education, we work in partnership with parents, teachers, the public library service, bookshops and authors to foster an enjoyment of reading, and to encourage the students to keep exploring new horizons. We strive to ensure that the library is equally accessible to all pupils. Both the library environment and stock aim to meet the needs of neurodiverse pupils and the pastoral side of school life is also a priority, and we include wellbeing books that may be helpful to young people who encounter challenging situations.

Our library is a community hub, and we reflect significant days special events, themed weeks, displays and competitions. Some examples of our recent displays have been: National Poetry Day, Black History Month, Holocaust Memorial Day, World Book Day, International Women's Day and Mental Health Awareness week. We have also enjoyed visits from variety of different authors including Caroline Lawrence, Joelle Taylor, Sita Brahmachari, Joe Sumner and Evie Wyld (graphic novel authors), Natasha Farrant and Mario Petrucci.

We have lively book clubs for different ages including one for Year 7, where the pupils determine the books we read, and the Year 8 Carnegie Shadowing Group. We are also launching a parent reading club in which parents will be encouraged to read in conjunction with their child to expose parents to current young adult fiction and give them strategies and approaches for discussing reading with their children at home. The Latymer Library also takes part in Book Trust’s Bookbuzz programme, which aims to get 11 to 13-year-old children reading. Each pupil can choose a book from 17 Bookbuzz titles, which they then get to keep. This choice will help them discover what gets them turning the page at school and at home.

During the last year the Latymer School has been fortunate to have a subsidised school subscription to the prestigious, members only, London Library. It is a treasure house of books and online resources for staff and the Sixth Form to use and offers its users an incredibly wide range of academic material.

The library holds regular competitions. For example, the winning design a Manga Poster now serves as a signpost to the library collection of manga and graphic novels which, have recently been, extensively added to.

The library also contains the War Memorial room, which houses the memorial books containing the names of Latymerians who served during World War II. The building itself is impressive and the completely relit, refurnished and the woodwork French polished, create a spacious, peaceful and conducive reading and study space and an apt place for reflection.