£7.2 million in grants to 17 charities focused on literacy and education in the UK

Julia Rausing Trust is pleased to announce £7.2 million in grants to 17 literacy and education charities across the country.

The largest grant, of £2.4 million, has been made to the National Literacy Trust’s Libraries for Primaries campaign. The campaign has been launched with a mission to ensure every primary school in the UK has a library or dedicated library space for its children.

The Julia Rausing Trust is a flagship partner of Libraries for Primaries, a cross-sector, multi-partner initiative co-founded by the National Literacy Trust and Penguin Books in 2021 that is helping to ensure that every primary school in the UK has a library or dedicated reading space by 2028.

The Julia Rausing Trust has also announced today a £1 million grant to the charity AllChild and its Early Intervention School Links Programme, a targeted early intervention programme that provides additional opportunities and support to children according to their individual needs. The grant will help fund the programme’s Link Workers across 37 schools, who build trusted relationships with children, families, and schools to provide each child with a wrap-around package of support which addresses their unique social, emotional and academic challenges, empowering them to flourish in their school and community.

Another £758,930 grant has been made to Action Tutoring to support its small group tutoring for disadvantaged pupils. This initiative helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve more through the support of passionate volunteer tutors, and aims to tackle the attainment gap head-on by forging partnerships with non-selective state schools nationwide. The grant will enable and empower Action Tutoring to bolster their delivery across their Northern, North West and South West hubs, with an ambition to help positively impact the lives and futures of over 1,000 children and young people over a three-year period.

Simon Fourmy, Director of the Julia Rausing Trust, said: “Julia Rausing was a passionate supporter of children and young people’s charities. She believed it was vital that all children had access to books, specialist care and after school clubs, whether at inner city schools or isolated rural areas. These grants have been made to continue her legacy of helping young people across the country.”   

Commenting on the donation, Jonathan Douglas CBE, CEO of the National Literacy Trust, said: “Shockingly, only 1 in 3 children and young people say they enjoy reading, and we know, from experience, the difference having a dedicated library space at primary school can make to reading for enjoyment levels, happiness, well-being and academic achievement. We are absolutely delighted to be extending our partnership with The Julia Rausing Trust, and enabling more children, across the UK, to benefit from access to books and the opportunity to develop a vital, life-long love of reading.”

Louisa Mitchell, CEO of AllChild, said: “We are so grateful to the Julia Rausing Trust for this incredible grant which will be transformative for AllChild – what a huge vote of confidence it is. We are thrilled and ready to get to work. This support will help us to work in partnership across whole communities in West London to achieve life-changing impact for over 1000 children and young people, as well as their families and peers.”

Susannah Hardyman, CEO of Action Tutoring, also commented: “We are so incredibly grateful to the Julia Rausing Trust for this phenomenal generosity. The attainment gap between pupils facing disadvantage and their more affluent peers is the largest it’s been in 12 years, and pupils from low-income backgrounds are, on average, 19 months behind their peers by the end of secondary school. Tutoring is a powerful intervention to help close this gap and we believe work such as ours is needed more than ever. We couldn’t do it without the support and generosity of others, and we’re really excited to work in collaboration with the Julia Rausing Trust to open opportunities for children and young people across the country.”

The full list of selected charities is:

• The National Literacy Trust
• AllChild
• Action Tutoring
• School Home Support
• Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust
• Football Beyond Borders
• XLP
• Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation
• The Clement James Centre
• Bloomsbury Football
• World Book Day Limited
• The Country Trust
• Magic Breakfast
• Ebony Horse Club
• Youth Sport Trust
• Read for Good
• People Potential Possibilities

21st November 2024