The Inflexion Foundation is pleased to announce the strengthening of its commitment to literacy charity Bookmark through a grant of £50,000 per annum for the next three years. Eight children in the average class in England are unable to read well when they leave primary school. This low literacy costs the UK economy c£36 billion annually.

Bookmark was started in 2018 with the vision of wanting every child to read, with its literacy programme aimed at improving both children’s literacy skills and their attitude towards reading. One in six children who don’t read well by the time they are 7 years old will not complete secondary education – a dropout rate six times higher than children who can read well – significantly impacting their future employment and social mobility.

Inflexion made its initial grant to Bookmark in 2021, with a number of volunteers from the Inflexion team delivering 100 one-to-one reading sessions to children to date. Their contribution amplifies the effect of Inflexion’s financial contribution by allowing the organisation to reach more children.

The new grant will support Bookmark’s plans to extend the scale, scope and reach of their impact through the addition of new service lines to provide a unique offer to partner schools. Over the next three years Bookmark intends to support 800 state primary schools in communities across the country, making an impact on hundreds of thousands of children that will last a lifetime.

It’s incredibly encouraging to witness first-hand the positive impact reading with children has. Bookmark has identified an acute and worsening issue and is doing a tremendous job of supporting those who need it most. We are delighted to strengthen our support for their efforts over the coming years.

Simon Turner,

Managing Partner, Inflexion

We are incredibly grateful to the Inflexion Foundation for their generous commitment, which will help us to scale over the next three years to reach more children in areas of high literacy need. Together with the Inflexion Foundation and Inflexion volunteers, we will be able to deliver more one-to-one reading support and provide essential resources to children in communities who need Bookmark the most, so that they can succeed in school and beyond.

Graihagh Crawshaw-Sadler,

CEO, Bookmark