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Our Impact

Discover the impact we make in children’s lives in disadvantaged communities across the country.

A boy wearing headphones is focused on his laptop while seated at a desk in a classroom setting.

Changing children’s stories

In 2024/​25, we brought the joy of reading to 180,979 children who benefitted from our support. We supported 399 schools in disadvantaged communities up and down the UK, and delivered 70,329 high-quality and diverse books. We have worked hard to scale our reach and deepen our impact to support more children. 

Read about what our community of schools, volunteers, supporters and partners helped us achieve in our 2024/​25 Impact Report.


Annual Report

Welcome to our Annual Report – a snapshot of our achievements over the academic year. This includes key highlights, a financial overview and the ways that we’ve made a difference supporting literacy in the UK. You can read our Annual Report online.

Impact Report

We recommend that you read our interactive 2024/​25 Impact Report in full-screen’ mode, or if you prefer, you can download a PDF version below. You can read our Impact Report online.

Our impact for the 2024/​25 academic year

2024/​25 marked the first year of our three-year strategy, and progress has been exceptional. We achieved a 92% year-on-year increase in children supported, putting us firmly on track to reach our ambitious goal of partnering with 1,000 schools and reaching half a million children through our programmes.

  • 95%

    of teachers noticed an increase in children’s reading enjoyment 

  • 563,256

    copies of The Story Corner magazines distributed in 2024/​25

  • 180,979

    pupils benefitted from our support over 2024/​25

  • 70,329

    high-quality, diverse resources delivered in 2024/​25

  • 399

    disadvantaged schools were supported in 2024/​25

  • 3,970

    Story Starter Packs delivered in 2024/​25

Research

Discover our latest research on the impact and effectiveness of our One-to-one Reading Programme

Read more

What do teachers say?

Working closely with our partner schools, teachers have fed back noticeable positive changes in their student’s enjoyment, confidence and reading skill.

  • 96%

    of teachers said that pupils” reading confidence improve over our One-to-one Reading Programme

  • 98%

    of teachers told us reading enjoyment improved as a result of our Your Story Corner Programme

  • 94%

    of children on our One-to-one Reading Programme progressed at or above the rate expected for their age

The ability to build and sustain a relationship with the readers is what benefits our children the most. It gives them the opportunity to have a special connection with someone who is not school based and who is 'just theirs'

Teacher from one of our partner schools

How do we make a difference?

Our Impact Report explores our effect on the following core aims:

  • Improving children’s enjoyment of reading

  • Improving children’s confidence

  • Improving children’s reading attainment

  • Improving children’s motivation to read

Find out more about our programmes

We partner with schools to develop a whole-school reading culture and provide one-to-one reading support.

Learn more
Three students are looking at books on a school library shelving unit. The student on the left is a girl with long blonde/brown hair and is wearing glasses and smiling. A boy in the middle with light coloured hair as a book open and a younger student with their hair tied up is on the far right looking at the books on the shelf.

The research behind our programme

In December 2020, we commissioned the National Literacy Trust to review both our face-to-face and online reading programmes against the evidence base regarding literacy interventions for primary school. They found that our reading programmes are well designed and align well with existing evidence. 

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