Greater Manchester school library censorship: who is accountable?

When a school librarian from Greater Manchester came to Index with a shocking story about nearly 200 books being hauled from her shelves and losing her career to a “safeguarding” complaint, we promised to conceal her identity. At her request, we renamed her Emily and we did not name the school. She was terrified about the repercussions if her name was known, both from the school and from other people who might target her online. We kept our promise.

Now, a local media outlet has uncovered and published the name of the school. Emily’s identity remains hidden. The school in question is the Lowry Academy in Salford, part of the United Learning Trust.

There were extra details Index could not reveal when the name of the school was concealed. We can now address these issues, which are in the public interest. We can reveal how the local authority upheld the safeguarding complaint that destroyed a librarian’s career, the evidence that contradicts the school’s response and the bigger concerns for both Greater Manchester and the United Learning Trust.

Initially, Emily told Index, she thought the situation “was a sick joke”.

She first heard of the threat to her job when the Lowry Academy’s headteacher took umbrage at Laura Bates’ book Men Who Hate Women in the school library. The nonfiction title, where Bates goes undercover to expose vast misogynist networks and communities, had been ordered by Emily for the Life 101 section for older students, after training she had received about incel culture. The school launched an investigation into both the library and Emily. She was soon reported to the local authority as a safeguarding risk, simply for stocking books. Nearly 200 books were removed and AI was used to categorise the reasons for each book’s removal. You can read more about what happened to Emily in our investigation.

While the name Lowry Academy is new, the public might be more familiar with it as the former Harrop Fold School, featured on the Channel 4 documentary Educating Greater Manchester. The school, whose leadership changed after it was fully academised in 2020, had a “good” Ofsted rating in 2024, but it was noted that pupils in key stage 4 had limited time devoted to personal, social and health education.

The academy is now part of the United Learning Trust, which says on its website that its ethos “is our expression of our Christian roots, in schools which are fully inclusive and both welcome and respect students and staff of all faiths and none”.

A former student from Lowry Academy got in contact with Index, after the name of the school was revealed.

He studied at the school until 2024, and said he spent all of his break times in the library. He described the vast and inclusive set of books, spanning across genres.

He said he found the library purge and the way Emily was treated “quite grotesque.”

“It was disgusting how it was all handled,” he added.

He was shocked by the list of targeted books, and said he’d read a few of the biographies. He also read a lot of George Orwell, while he has friends who read many of the manga books.

He believes the loss of titles from the library will have a big impact on current students who, like him, find a safe space in the library.

“They won’t have the freedom of reading what they want to read,” he said.

While the Lowry Academy did not respond to Index for comment, the Manchester Mill reported that the school told them: “It is not the case that books have been ‘banned’ by the school. Following concerns that a number of books within the library were neither age nor content appropriate, an audit was conducted. Following this, books have been placed into age-appropriate categories and returned to the shelves. A very small number of books were deemed inappropriate even for older children due to their content and have been removed.”

It may be true some books have now been returned, but they were undoubtedly removed in the first instance. Lowry Academy refused to engage with Index or other organisations to explain what had happened to the books. Index has documentary evidence to support the claim that the books were indeed initially removed from the library during an “audit”.

In an email from the school to Emily during the investigation, she was told: “Attached is the list of books [the designated safeguarding lead] has removed from the library. Please note that the audit is still ongoing, and the DSL has confirmed that she is alleging these books are not suitable to remain in the library. The investigation will be based on the attached list.”

Further to this, in the school’s investigation report, they concluded with the recommendation: “Continue the audit of all library resources until the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is satisfied that any material deemed inappropriate for a school setting has been removed.”

Index has seen extensive documentary evidence proving Emily’s claims. These documents have also been seen by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and their School Libraries Group (SLG), who have both been supporting Emily.

During their investigation, evidenced in these documents, the school shared examples of the removed books with the trust’s safeguarding lead, who said: “The school should ensure that library materials reflect the values and ethos of the school”.

The values described on the school website are “aspiration, respect, confidence, creativity and resilience”.

The investigation report said that the trust’s safeguarding lead had stated: “Some of these books would be indefensible to parents and expressed concern that the material does not represent a balanced view aligned with the values the trust seeks to promote.”

During the investigation, the school also showed concern for their reputation, writing in a report: “I believe there has been a failure to prevent students accessing inappropriate books, this constitutes a serious safeguarding breach under KCSIE 2025. Had parents been aware of this, the school’s reputation could have been brought into significant disrepute.”

The Lowry Academy story is not simply a case of one overzealous headteacher. Not only have several senior members of staff been involved, but the trust and the local authority have also played key roles.

Margaret Woodhouse, the chair of the school’s governing body, is also the independent chair of the Greater Manchester Learning Partnership, where school leaders across the region work together.

Emily was reported to the local authority as a safeguarding risk on 9 December 2025 and her hearing was held on 5 January 2026, after she had resigned. When the committee, known as a LADO, made their decision in January 2026, they substantiated the allegation, stating that Emily had not caused direct harm but that she had failed to follow safeguarding procedures. Index has seen redacted minutes of the meeting.

The meeting was held by Salford City Council, and there were four people in attendance. Two were from the school, one was the LADO chair and one was the LADO administration officer.

The allegations against Emily were specifically around “introducing inappropriate material into the school library” and nothing else. No previous concerns about her had been raised.

In the meeting, the school’s senior vice-principal explained that the referral was made “after discovering multiple books in the school library containing inappropriate content. These books had been loaned to children and did not align with the school’s curriculum”.

They confirmed that the investigation was prompted by their discovery of Men Who Hate Women, saying: “the content was inappropriate for children and even challenging for adults to access”.

At one point, the LADO chair asked why Emily “began ordering controversial titles and whether this was a recent development”. She later “confirmed several books were adult literature and therefore unsuitable for a school setting”.

Some of the books removed include Michelle Obama’s Becoming, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Andrew Flintoff’s autobiography Second Innings.

As Caroline Roche, chair of the School Libraries Group (SLG) told Index, librarians all make different decisions about which books to stock based on their students and communities, and are ready to defend their collections. Indeed, many GCSE English set texts were not written for children, including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. They contain challenging topics, as do many others.

In Salford City Council’s decision, there appears to have been a lack of understanding of the role of a school library – an increasing occurrence when it comes to school leadership, when there is an absence of statutory guidance for school libraries.

The Lowry Academy boasts on its website that “reading is central to the development of our students”, and talks of how students can read all kinds of genres – horror, graphic novels and classics among them. Students will “be exposed to unfamiliar topics to broaden their understanding of the world around them,” the school writes. Many titles in these genres were indeed removed from the school library during the purge.

The school’s investigation discussed the removal of a Nineteen-Eighty-Four graphic novel. And mere paragraphs later described how a senior staff member felt the library’s ‘Life 101’ section (where Emily kept books for school leavers) was inappropriate, “based on the association with the television program Room 101, where undesirable items are symbolically discarded”. They were seemingly oblivious to Room 101’s origins in Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four.

The day Index published our investigation, the Lowry Academy posted a Facebook video promoting a The Traitors-style game, where staff would be “banished”. It was filmed in the school library. 

“It has come to our attention that among our staff we have some traitors,” one staff member says on the video, without an ounce of irony. Not for the fact that one of their staff has already been “banished”, not for the fact that books have been banished and not for the fact that The Traitors is a programme about murder and deception, not made exclusively for young people. Although, of course, enjoyed by many.

Index believes this story is of huge public interest. Not only because the freedom to read and intellectual freedom are under attack in a school setting, but also because important safeguarding procedures appear to have been misused by multiple people. We fear we will see more stories like this if changes are not made, and that school librarians will self-censor through fear.

Index has approached the Lowry Academy, United Learning Trust and Salford City Council for comment. United Learning acknowledged the request but did not provide a comment before publication. The others have not replied.

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