Our strategy 2024-27

Discover how we will support more children to improve their literacy skills between 2024-2027.

Our strategy explains how we will improve children’s literacy by taking a whole-school culture to reading for pleasure.

This strategy embodies our commitment to prioritising children in disadvantaged communities, where the barriers to reading are greatest.

Vision: we want every child to read

Mission: we improve children’s literacy by promoting a reading for pleasure culture in primary schools, with a focus on supporting children in the most disadvantaged communities

At the heart of our mission is a simple yet powerful vision: we want every child to read and since our beginning in 2018, Bookmark Reading have been dedicated to addressing the literacy gap that leaves more than 1 in 4 children leaving primary school without adequate reading skills.

Building on our success over 6 years, we’re now deepening our impact by fostering a love of reading among more children.

Over the next 3 years, we’d like to reach 1,000 schools and benefit 500,000 children, ensuring they have the opportunity to experience the transformative power of literacy.

“Thank you to everyone who has made it possible for us to support children on their paths to becoming readers. We are grateful to our board of trustees, the Bookmark team, volunteers, partner schools, donors and supporters. We look forward to implementing our plans for future growth to address the UK literacy challenge together, so that more children can experience the joy of reading to have a fairer start in life”
— Emily Jack (CEO) and Sharon Pindar (Chair & Founder)

Download our 2024-27 strategy

Download our strategy where we’ve summarised our ambitious three-year plan. In this strategy, we’ve outlined a plan of action of how we aim to transform children’s lives through literacy and drive meaningful change. Please download the strategy below.

Pathways and programmes of support

Our 5 key pathways

We will achieve our mission by implementing the following 5 pathways to reading:

  1. One-to-one reading support and positive role models

  2. Engaging reading spaces and high-quality, diverse reading resources

  3. Teacher training and resources

  4. Creating a reading buzz across the whole school

  5. Family engagement and parental engagement

Our 10 literacy programmes

This work will be underpinned by our 10 literacy programmes:

  • Our reading programmes provide 30-minute weekly sessions for children needing extra support, delivered by volunteers either in-person or online. We aim to deliver 165,000 sessions while diversifying our volunteer base to meet growing demand.

  • Following an in-depth literacy consultation, we provide each school with a tailored action plan and up to £10,000 in funding to enhance their whole-school reading culture. Our Literacy Partner Programme also serves as an incubator for new service lines, which, once proven effective, are integrated into our broader offerings.

    We aim to support 150 schools through this programme.

  • We create inviting reading spaces equipped with 200 new books, teacher CPD resources, and engaging materials to encourage children to become confident readers and develop a lifelong love of reading.

    We plan to expand to nine new areas, supporting 500 schools through our Your Story Corner Programme.

  • This programme builds on the Your Story Corner initiative, offering sustainable support to schools to further enhance whole-school reading cultures. Each school in the network receives up to £1,000 in resources annually, along with access to our training and resources. The programme also facilitates networking opportunities for teachers and literacy leads to collaborate and share best practices.

    We aim to include 500 schools in our School Network Programme.

  • We distribute our termly magazine, The Story Corner, to provide children without home access to books with quality reading material. It will reach 2,000,000 copies across schools and community settings.

  • We send schools termly packs of new, diverse books centered on themes often missing from libraries, such as graphic novels and poetry. Each pack is curated by a notable figure in education or literacy and includes scrapbooks for a whole-school reading challenge.

    We will provide 1,500 Rocket Packs to schools.

  • We are launching book clubs to engage reluctant readers, providing schools with mini libraries in various genres and resources to create excitement around reading. Each club includes a plan for 10 termly sessions.

    We will deliver 300 book clubs to schools.

  • We provide early years packs for children aged 4-5 to foster a love of reading before they start school. Each pack includes a book, an early years version of The Story Corner magazine, stationery, storytelling props and family engagement resources.

    We aim to deliver 12,000 Story Starter packs to children starting school.

  • We offer schools CPD grants and memberships with third-party organizations to support embedding a whole-school reading culture. Additionally, we provide webinars, videos and other resources for teacher training.

    We will distribute 200 grants to support these initiatives.

  • To address challenges in family engagement, we will distribute home resources and video content to 40,000 families in disadvantaged communities, empowering them to support their child's reading. We will also build strategic collaborations to enhance and amplify these efforts.

become a bookmark volunteer

Dedicate just 30 minutes twice a week, to helping a child develop essential literacy skills.

learn more about corporate partnerships

From corporate donations and fundraisers, to corporate volunteering, learn more about how your company can partner with Bookmark.

explore our work with schools

One-to-one reading support, free literacy resources and continued professional development grants, are just some of the ways we work with schools to promote a whole school reading culture.

1 Cree, A., Kay, A., & Steward, J. (2022). The economic and social cost of illiteracy. World Literacy Foundation. 

2 Picton, I. & Clark, C. (2023). Children and young people’s book ownership in 2023: A 10-year retrospective. National Literacy Trust. 

3 Primary School Library Alliance (2022). Working Together Towards a Library In Every Primary School  

4 Education Policy Institute (2023). Annual Report. 

5 Kerr, E. (2021). Paying the price: The cost of very poor adult literacy. Pro Bono Economics. 

6 Ministry of Justice (2023) Prison Education and Accredited Programme Statistics 2022-2023. 

7 Picton, I. & Clark, C. (2022). Seeing yourself in what you read: diversity and children and young people’s reading in 2022. National Literacy Trust.