Closing the Literacy Gap, One Library at a Time

In rural Shropshire, four small primary schools share a striking characteristic: none of them has a functioning school library. Budget pressures have stripped library collections down to collections of ageing, worn-out titles, and no dedicated library staff. Reading for pleasure — and the attainment improvements it drives — has become a privilege associated with wealthier, urban schools.

The Northfield Community Schools Partnership applied to the Foundation with a deceptively simple idea: a dedicated book van, staffed by a trained literacy specialist, that would rotate between the four schools on a weekly basis. The grant of £62,000 covered vehicle conversion, an initial book stock of 4,000 titles, staffing costs, and a teacher professional development programme.

The impact was swift and measurable. At the two-year mark, standardised reading assessments showed an average improvement of 34% in reading attainment across the cohort. More strikingly, the number of children who described themselves as reading for pleasure outside school increased from 31% to 67%. Teachers reported that children who had previously been disengaged in class were requesting books from the van by name.

The programme has since been adopted as a model by two neighbouring local authorities. The Sanghera Foundation supported the Partnership to document and publish their methodology, enabling the approach to be replicated without requiring equivalent capital investment. The book van itself has now been running for three years without interruption, reaching 1,200 pupils in each academic year.