The North East Literacy Forum is the campaign steering group. This group delivers Read North East, led by the National Literacy Trust.
The Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians
ASCEL is the national network of senior managers in the Children’s Public and Schools Library Services. We lead excellence in library services for children and young people and schools to ensure that every child and young person visiting a public library is inspired by an exciting environment and to ensure every school has access to a high quality library service.
We work closely with national agencies such as the National Literacy Trust, The Reading Agency and BookTrust to deliver a wide range of national programmes. ASCEL North East members work together on a range of exciting regional festivals including Northern Children’s Book Festival, Crossing the Tees festival and Juice Festival.
To ensure excellence in services to children, our members have recently delivered a workforce development package for staff who work in libraries, developed by Society of Chief Librarians and ASCEL. Find out more
Education Endowment Foundation
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is an independent grant-making charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement, ensuring that children and young people from all backgrounds can fulfil their potential and make the most of their talents.
In September 2016, the EEF launched a new £10 million North East Primary Literacy Campaign, co-funded with Northern Rock Foundation. This five-year campaign to boost literacy levels in the North East aims to reach all 880 primary schools in the region, in order to narrow the gap in educational outcomes between children from low income homes and their more advantaged classmates. The campaign combines evidence-based guidance with direct support for schools.
With a focus on early years and parental engagement, Read North East will work alongside the North East Primary Literacy Campaign to enhance the work of both initiatives. Find out more
New Writing North
New Writing North supports and promotes writing and reading in the North of England. We commission new work, identify and nurture talent, create development opportunities, and make connections for writers with industry, including publishing and broadcasting.
We produce the Durham Book Festival for Durham County Council, which includes a range of family events and a festival for schools aimed at five to 18-year-olds.
Our annual theatre tour is an adaptation of a contemporary children’s book aimed at children under seven and their families. The work tours 43 community centres and libraries across the North in areas with very low cultural provision, supported by reading and writing development activity to further engage children and families in literature.
Our Cuckoo Young Writers programme comprises opportunities for young people aged 12 to 23 to develop their creative writing and journalism with professional writers. We also run Young Writers’ City, targeting young people who are facing barriers to engaging with the arts. We aim to make the North East the most opportunity-rich place to be a young writer. Find out more
Northern Children’s Book Festival
We believe that reading and storytelling should be a fundamental part of a child’s life and every year we run a two-week festival of book related activity working with schools and communities across the whole of the North East region. Over the two weeks we deliver a programme of author, illustrator, poet and storyteller visits within and for schools.
The festival culminates in a free Gala Day celebration event where children and their families are able to meet and get actively involved in inspiring sessions run by the creators of their favourite children’s books. This year's festival is taking place from 6 to 18 November 2017. Find out more
Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House is the UK’s biggest book publisher. We are home to over 50 editorially independent publishing imprints, 23 Man Booker Prize winning authors and 45% of the Sunday Times bestsellers. We publish authors from Ian McEwan to JoJo Moyes, Dan Brown to Arundhati Roy, Jamie Oliver to Zadie Smith and a whole host of children’s favourites including Roald Dahl, Malorie Blackman and the Peppa Pig books. Our purpose is to connect the world with the stories, writing and ideas that matter.
We are a founding partner of Read North East, which builds on our proud history of supporting children’s literacy and engaging families by making reading fun. We are part of the national Read On. Get On. campaign and are one of the biggest funders of the annual celebration of books and reading, World Book Day. We support children’s reading in schools and libraries, from taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge, to live-streaming into classrooms across the UK with Puffin Virtually Live. We also help to give a free book to every family in the UK in their baby’s first year by providing discounted books to charity BookTrust. Find out more
Seven Stories
Seven Stories is Britain’s national home for children’s literature. We champion the art of children’s books, ensuring their place as an essential part of childhood and of our national cultural life.
Seven Stories saves, celebrates and shares Britain’s literary heritage for children, fostering a love of reading across generations through extensive public and learning programmes. We use our unique children’s literature archive to inspire a culture of reading for pleasure in children and young people which helps to raise educational attainment as well as boosting wellbeing and creativity, bringing books into the lives of children of all backgrounds, ages and abilities.
Our seven-storey listed building in Newcastle upon Tyne houses exhibition galleries, performance, learning and creative spaces, and a specialist bookshop. We are open seven days a week and welcome over 70,000 visitors each year, working with a further 150,000 people a year through outreach work and exhibition tours. Seven Stories is the only accredited museum of its kind in Britain, and one of a few such places in the world. Find out more
The Society of Chief Librarians
The Society of Chief Librarians leads and manages public libraries across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and advocates for the continuous improvement of services on behalf of local people. Through the five Universal Offers and two Promises, the Society provides focus and support for services and a consistent approach for librarians and library workers to sign up to. Reading is at the heart of the Universal Offers and SCL works with a wide range of partners to deliver the Summer Reading Challenge, the Read Ahead scheme, Books on Prescription and many other initiatives and activities.
12 public library services make up the local branch of the Society of Chief Librarians and we are proud to support literacy and reading across our region. We are used to working together to promote reading and libraries to local communities, delivering the Northern Children’s Book Festival annually and working on shared projects such as the Shakespeare 400 Celebrations. Find out more
SCHOOLS NorthEast
Set up by schools for schools, we are the first and only school-led regional network in the UK. SCHOOLS NorthEast is an inclusive network led by headteachers, creating a unique culture of collaboration and mutual support, and bringing the expertise of our members to benefit developments within our region. Find out more