Preston Lodge High School’s librarian is getting ready for an award ceremony next month after being nominated for a national prize.

Derek France, 46, was nominated alongside two other librarians from schools in England for the School Librarian of the Year Secondary Award.

The awards are supported by the Foyle Foundation, an independent grantmaking trust that distributes grants to UK charities.

Derek shared his pride at being recognised for the nomination, which provides validation for the work the library does for students.

He said: “I’m honoured, also overwhelmed – it’s great to be recognised for the work of the school library.”

Derek stressed the importance of “fostering reading for pleasure”.

He added: “The library has been created as a safe space for all students – it’s important to give students the agency to make decisions [to read] themselves.

“Lots of students’ shoulders drop when they enter the library and they give out a sigh of relief.”

Derek added that his role was not that of a teacher, allowing him to build different relationships with pupils and help foster and engage with their wide interests.

This had allowed him to create a variety of events to engage with all sorts of students, ranging from creative writing to fantasy tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons.

Gavin Clark, headteacher at Preston Lodge High School, was also delighted at Derek’s recognition.

He said: “This is a wonderful achievement, and everyone at Preston Lodge is delighted that Derek’s amazing work as our school librarian has been recognised on a national stage.

“Derek has transformed our school library into not only a key pillar of our work around literacy, but also an important part of our efforts to maximise student wellbeing.

“Derek is incredibly committed and innovative, and our library is a great place to be. We are so lucky to have him in our school and we’re all rooting for him!”

The awards ceremony takes place on Thursday, October 20, at a gala dinner in Swindon, where Derek is looking forward to meeting the other nominees.

He added: “It’s great to be on the list, the other two candidates are fantastic.

“It will be nice to meet them properly, as well as the judges and members of the School Library Association.”