PUPILS at one York school have turned an old shed in to a lending library fit for the city's Lord Mayor.

The Lord Mayor of York Cllr David Carr and Sheriff, Susie Mercer, were invited to St Lawrence's CE Primary School Heslington Road just before the end of term to declare the new facility open.

Teacher and Key Stage 2 leader, Gareth Jones said it all came about because St Lawrence's a whole school project called 'Agents Of Change' where each class across the school looked at people in the world that have made change for the better, such as Rosa Parks, David Attenborough, Malala Yousafzai, Marie Curie and many others.

He said: "We then took on our own class projects to become 'Agents Of Change' Year 3 decided to create a 'lending library.'

"Outside our classroom stood an old shed. One pupil thought that we should turn it into something special and we agreed on a lending library."

Pupils researched and made plans before getting to work. They painted the inside and outside of the shed, measured and fitted a carpet, created some artwork to go inside and put out a plea for old book donations.

The intent now is that families within the community can come along, browse the books and take one that they like. They can bring it back once finished or keep it to pass on.

Mr Jones said: "Pupils then wrote to the Lord Mayor Of York, to see if he would open our 'lending library' they were shocked and ecstatic that he agreed and also wanted to bring The Sheriff Of York too. The Mayor came yesterday with the Sheriff and officially opened the library; they had a tour of school and spent time with our class taking questions and finding out more from the project. They were very impressed."

"The pupils have been really engaged in this project and passionate about making change. Reading is so important and opens so many doors. Recent research shows that 1 in 17 children do not own a single book. We wanted to become agents of change and make reading accessible for everyone. It is also a good way of promoting recycling. I'm very proud of the children."

The pupils said that they loved making the library, it was great getting to meet the Mayor and Sheriff and asking questions about his house, his favourite book and how you become mayor!

The lending library is now up and running and we hope it will be there for years to come, providing people with free books and staff say is lovely to see families and children already using it.