Three hundred primary schools across the UK will benefit from a new library or enhanced, dedicated reading space this year, thanks to a new £1.8 million partnership between the National Literacy Trust and the Foyle Foundation.
As a new flagship partner of Libraries for Primaries – a cross-sector, multi-partner initiative co-founded by the National Literacy Trust and Penguin Books in 2021, the Foyle Foundation will become the lead partner for the next phase of the initiative, helping to ensure that every primary school in the UK has a library or dedicated reading space by 2028.
Jonathan Douglas CBE, CEO of the National Literacy Trust, said: "There are currently 1,900 primary schools in the UK that don’t have a dedicated library, and this is negatively impacting 750,000 children in some of our most disadvantaged communities. We are absolutely delighted to be partnering with The Foyle Foundation, a supporter of school libraries since 2009, and now as a lead Libraries for Primaries partner; enabling us to scale up at speed through the next phase, and provide a library for every primary school that needs one.”
David Hall, CEO of the Foyle Foundation said: “Building on the more than 2,000 state schools that the Foyle Foundation has supported to date, we are delighted to partner and combine forces with National Literacy Trust to fill a gap and support those most difficult to reach primary schools, which still do not have a school library.”
The Foyle Foundation has been supporting the arts, learning, community projects, schools and libraries for the past 25 years and will complete its grant-giving programme next year.