PUPILS and staff at a Tadley school are celebrating the start of a new chapter with the official opening of a new library.

Dave Spencer, who has been a governor at the school for 16 years, cut the ribbon alongside pupil Mutahhar Amin, six, while pupils, staff and members of the PTA looked on at Bishopswood Infant School, in Barlow Road.

The library has been converted from a former classroom and gives the school a dedicated room for reading for the first time.

Acting deputy headteacher Sarah Parkhurst said: “Before this, our library was based in the hallway.

“We want to encourage reading for pleasure and the new library will help us to do this. We will have a new system for taking books out and will be inviting the parents in to hear more about it.”

The library, which cost around £6,000, was largely funded by the Little Bishops PTA, which managed to raise £4,000 towards the room from fundraising activities.

Miss Parkhurst said: “We are very grateful for all the wonderful work that they do for the school.”

Work on the library started back in September 2013. To celebrate the opening, Mr Spencer, who reads to the children weekly, took his first reading session in the new library, and the school also invited a storyteller to read to the pupils.

There was also a specially-created cake which had been made in honour of the new library opening.