The Inflexion Foundation is pleased to announce its ongoing commitment to literacy charity Bookmark Reading Charity (Bookmark) through a grant of £100,000 per annum for the next three years. One in four children in England currently leave primary school unable to read well. This low literacy costs the UK economy £81 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 to foster a love of reading for pleasure. Children who do not read well are more likely to go on to experience unemployment, poor mental health and even a shorter life expectancy.

Inflexion has been supporting Bookmark since 2021 when it made its initial grant. Volunteers from the Inflexion team regularly deliver one-to-one reading sessions to children aged 5 to 11. Their contribution amplifies the effect of Inflexion’s financial contribution by allowing the organisation to reach more children from schools in disadvantaged areas.

The new grant will support Bookmark’s plans to extend the scale, scope and reach of their impact through Bookmark’s 10 programmes to provide a unique offer to partner schools. Over the next two years Bookmark intends to support 1,000 state primary schools and benefit half-a-million children in communities across the country, making an impact that will last a lifetime.