THERE is nothing like having a good book to read on the bus.

Now pupils from St Nicholas’ Primary School in Marston, Oxford, can enjoy reading on their very own bus, parked in the playground.

A former Stagecoach double-decker has been made into a library for the school after youngsters came up with the idea in a reading group.

Staff hope the bus library will improve children’s reading at the school in Raymund Road as part of a strategy to become an outstanding reading school.

Headteacher Rachel Crouch said: “It’s part of a bigger plan to make the school better and we came up with it because the school has doubled in size and our current library was too small. We could not afford to extend the library or rebuild it so we managed to come up with this great idea.

“The reading community is a group of children and they all were thinking about ways to improve reading in the school, it wouldn’t have happened without their help.

“We have it under the trees in the playground – it’s already being called Treetops. It’s going to be amazing.”

The school wrote to various bus companies about buying an old bus for the project and received a reply from Stagecoach Midlands.

The bus company stripped the bus and repainted it red before it was transported from Rugby to the school on Thursday.

Now with help from Headington Girls School, St Nicholas’ youngsters will decorate the inside to make it a good reading environment.

Curtains will be made and the two decks of the bus will be split into fiction and non-fiction sections.

Mrs Crouch added: “We are thinking about maybe putting solar panels on the bus so that we could use it in the winter.

“When it arrived it was amazing.

“All the children were outside the school and we had kept it secret.

“The children were screaming from the minute they saw it – they were completely delighted with it. It was amazing to see their reaction.”

Seats will be taken out so that bookshelves can be fitted.

Year 6 pupil Henry Sullivan, 11, said: “It’s a really amazing thing because the children from the reading committee wrote to Stagecoach and they said yes to our plan.

“So on Thursday morning when the bus came in it was amazing.

“It was a massive surprise to everybody because pretty much the whole school was there to see it arrive.

“I like reading adventure books and funny books and I think the bus will be very popular.”