Library News
Welcome from the Library!
Welcome to 2026 from the library team. We are excited for the new school year and even more excited for the opportunities that the new library in the Dominican Learning Centre (DLC) presents our team as we work to support our students and staff.
Our library is open from 7:30 am until 3.30 pm each day. Students are invited to come and take advantage of the activities on offer.
This year, the library team consists of Ms Rebecca Hannan as Lead Teacher Librarian, Ms Elizabeth Laird as Teacher Librarian, Mrs Josie Cox as Library Assistant, and we are also being supported by Ms Kathryn O’Sullivan, Mrs Melanie Thompson, and Mrs Erin Bice in the development of library programs, activities, and events.
We hope that 2026 will be a year of growth for our team, our students, and the development of a strong academic and reading culture at McCarthy.
The NEW Library:
From Monday of Week 4, the new library was open to students. The library has been set up with a focus on accessibility, new and current literature, state of the art technology and resources, and plenty of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, Quick Reads, and picture books to borrow. We have many quiet spaces, seating options, and activities such as games and colouring on offer.
Thank you to everyone who assisted in the development and setup of the new library. We hope our students and staff are excited by the opportunities that this wonderful new space provides us to study, learn, and grow together.
Library Programs:
This year, the library staff are supporting the Renaissance Reader program for Year 7 and Year 8 students. This program asks students to refine and use their reading skills to develop their comprehension, inference, language, structural, decoding, fluency, and vocabulary.
We ask students and parents to continue developing these skills at home by reading for a minimum of 20 minutes at least three times a week. This will assist and improve reading for every subject and is a key skill moving through the stages of learning and growth for life outside school and in the workforce.
We have adopted the motto this year that “Books Only Work if You Read Them”. We look forward to working with students, parents, and staff to build a solid foundation and reading culture at McCarthy.
Premier’s Reading Challenge 2026
The Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) for 2026 opened on Monday, 23rd February. The PRC is open to all NSW students in Kindergarten to Year 10. The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely. We have been meeting with students and encouraging them to sign up for 2026. The library has many of the materials on the PRC list.
Students should visit Ms Hannan or Ms Laird in the library to get more information about registering their participation, or if they need any assistance in finding materials or updating their reading log. We are excited to support students in achieving their reading goals and hope to see many students receive their certificates of completion.
Students as Authors Writing Competition 2026:
The Armidale Catholic Schools Students as Authors Writing Competition is now open for 2026. This year, the competition has an open category, meaning students can write a quality piece of work on any topic they choose. Stories must be submitted as a student's own work and have a maximum of 15,000 words. The competition will be judged by School Performance Leader, Edmond Maher, and winners will have an opportunity to work with an illustrator to develop their story as an eBook. EBooks will be published on our school library platform and can reach an audience of over 250,000 students in Catholic schools across Australia.
McCarthy has had previous successes with winners in many categories, and we strongly encourage students to use the open category to write a piece of powerful writing.
The competition closes on Friday, the 17th of April. Happy writing!
Bec Hannan
Lead Teacher Librarian
Libby Laird
Teacher Librarian