Just wonder if others find this policy as batty as i do...
I have a child in primary school who has always been an unusually avid reader. She is also a very competent reader.
She has ploughed her way through many books... She has just read all but one of the Percy jack sons and the heroes of Olympus the adventure islands and the narnia series for e.g.
She went back to school this week and I suggested she take the final Percy Jackson from the school library (to save me getting it....). She came home and told me the librarian would not let her take it out because she is eight and a half and it says nine plus on the back. I thought she was making it up, but (by chance I was in the library yesterday and) I asked the librarian and she said it was true, and because some parents apparently complain when their kids bring home age inappropriate books she strictly adhered to reading age as stated on the back of the book.
Is t this a bit bonkers? Reading age is a guideline not a law! I looked on the shelves and my daughter has already read swathes of the books that the library only makes accessible to year five and year six.
Quite a few of her friends are equally voracious readers.
We had this problem end year 2 as well when she was only allowed to read rainbow fairies (ie sexist bolkox) and picture books in the infant library, even though she's been reading proper books at home and at her old schools for a year.
I know I can get the books out of the public library and in fact My child has access to all the books she needs. But in principle it strikes me a ridiculous and lazy policy. At her old (state) school for example she used to be allowed to choose books from the junior library, even iat the start of year 2.. No one vetted them (I mean, it's not going to be porn In a primary school, is it) and it worked fine.
Can someone make me see this policy in a positive light? I struggle to see it as anything but a bit... Stupid.