06 Oct Essex Primary School welcomes book donation in first chapter of new term
Children at St Giles’ C of E Primary School returned to the classroom with a surprise after a local community broadband provider teamed up with a publisher to donate dozens of educational books worth hundreds of pounds.
Essex-based County Broadband, which is building full-fibre broadband infrastructure across the region, is working in partnership with Usborne Books to support the school in Great Maplestead, Halstead as part of a commitment to help local communities.
County Broadband donated £1,000 through the Usborne Books Community Book Pledge. Usborne Books then provided an additional 60% towards the donated amount, making the total value of books purchased £1,600. The campaign aims to increase vital reading material and up-to-date resources for schools.
Mrs Jinnie Nichols, Headteacher at St Giles’ Primary School, praised the book donation, saying: “It’s so important for children to engage with high quality reading material from a young age to support their learning. These books are a fantastic gift to help us recover lost learning time and is a great boost to our wellbeing.
“The children were very excited to receive the new books and this donation was a lovely way to start the new term. We are very grateful to County Broadband and Usborne Books for supporting us, especially during these challenging times for staff, pupils and families.”
Books ranged from classic fiction like The Wizard of Oz to educational non-fiction titles including Science Encyclopedia and The Usborne History of Britain.
Lloyd Felton, chief executive officer at County Broadband, based near Colchester, said: “It’s lovely to see the children at St Giles’ enjoying the books we donated and we were pleased to work with the school to provide this welcome boost at the start of term.
“As well as building new full-fibre broadband networks to deliver future-ready connectivity to homes and businesses, as a community provider we’re passionate about going even further. That’s why we’re continuing to work with local people, schools and charities to make a real difference in the communities we all live in.”
Claire Jeggo, Usborne Books organiser, said: “We’ve been delighted to work with County Broadband to provide St Giles’ with access to a fantastic collection of books which the children can enjoy for many years.”
County Broadband’s new full-fibre networks use fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure in which fibre optic cables are installed directly into the premises, offering download and uploads speeds of 1,000 Mbps. It replaces fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) Victorian copper-based infrastructure on which ‘Superfast’ is based.
