Books Council of Wales secures over £800,000 to inspire a lifelong love of reading in Wales
 
The Books Council of Wales welcomes the announcement that it has been awarded a £849,860 grant over three years from Welsh Government Education Department to continue and develop its reading promotion activities.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education Lynne Neagle has announced this week that the Books Council of Wales is one of the organisations that will receive funding under the Curriculum for Wales Grant Support Programme.

The funding is awarded to the Children’s Books and Reading Promotion Department, who run a wide range of campaigns and partnerships to celebrate books and promote reading for pleasure.

These will include:
Teachers Love Reading – following a successful pilot in 2024, this project will deliver a series of tailored training for primary and secondary teachers by higher education practitioners from Bangor University, with a particular focus on upskilling teachers in reading for pleasure, embedding reading in the classroom and teaching reading and literacy. The programme aims to nurture a love of reading amongst teaching professionals so that they can inspire their learners in the classroom.

The Summer Reading Challenge – a scheme to encourage children and their families to continue reading during the summer holidays, by visiting a local library. The project attracts over 33,000 children and young people to take advantage of borrowing books from public libraries in Wales each year. In partnership with the Reading Agency and libraries in Wales.

BookSlam / Gornest Lyfrau – reading competitions based on specially created reading lists and resources to enrich learning and enhance comprehension. Schools compete at county level initially, with the winning schools representing their county in the national finals held in Aberystwyth.

Nurturing a Community of Readers – a series of programmes that will encourage and support families to read for pleasure. It prioritises access to books and resources for those who need them most and provides multiple ways for children and families to get involved in the element that is most suitable for them and their needs. This programme includes:

• World Book Day in March, in partnership with World Book Day, and UNESCO World Book Day celebrations on 23 April;
• A collaboration with RhAG (Parents for Welsh Medium Education), to organise reading for pleasure sessions for non-Welsh speaking parents;
• Supporting the publication of a digital magazine, Cyw, for learners aged 3–7 in collaboration with Boom Cymru;
• Continuing the Books Council’s Young People’s Panel, and engaging young adults to read with the ‘Sut i Ddarllen’ podcast.

Head of Children’s Books and Reading Promotion Bethan Jones said: “We’re delighted to have been awarded this essential funding, without which we wouldn’t be able to run so many of the campaigns and activities that inspire children and young people to read for pleasure every year. We have really exciting plans for the next three years and feel very fortunate to have secured multi-year funding, which means that we will be able to collaborate with partners to build on the projects over successive years, getting more books to more children and young people, and to inspire a lifelong love of reading.”

Helgard Krause, Chief Executive of the Books Council of Wales said: “I would like to thank the Cabinet Secretary and her department for their continued commitment through this funding, which underpins the work of the Children’s Books and Reading Promotion Department at the Books Council, and which has safeguarded 2.5 jobs.

This grant enables us to continue to deliver popular annual reading promotion schemes and partnerships for children throughout Wales, such as the Summer Reading Challenge and a World Book Day £1 Welsh-language title. Importantly, it also means that we can deliver specific, targeted interventions to respond to the needs of the Curriculum for Wales as well as current challenges around literacy levels, reaching a million Welsh-speakers, and well-being. We’re looking forward to working with our network of trusted partners to deliver this ambitious and exciting programme over the next three years.”

The funding has been awarded until March 2028 under the Curriculum for Wales Grant Support Programme. Information about the projects funded by this grant will be published on the Books Council’s website www.books.wales