North East Primary Literacy Campaign
In November 2015 the Foundation awarded a £5 million grant to the Education Endowment Foundation for a major campaign to improve children’s literacy in the North East. This was matched by the Education Endowment Foundation to create a £10 million project over five years to tackle low literacy attainment levels amongst disadvantaged children in the North East.
At that time the North East was an area with twice as many disadvantaged pupils as the national average. Almost two in five primary school pupils were classified as disadvantaged and they were twice as likely to begin secondary school struggling to read and write.
The Literacy Campaign is intended to have a principal focus on primary schools and primary age children, but expects to involve a wide range of literacy support providers both in school and in the community.
The North East Literacy Campaign aims to:-
- Narrow the attainment gap for literacy at age 11 for disadvantaged children in the North East to a significant degree over the five years of the Programme.
- Create a reliable self-improving primary school system in the North East, which ensures the maximum possible number of pupils are able to read and write well by age 11.
- Provide children that continue to need additional literacy support with access to tried and tested programmes which are self -sufficient beyond the end of the Programme.
The North East Literacy Campaign will include:-
- Funding for schools to test, implement and scale up evidence based literacy support programmes
- Support for schools to identify their literacy needs and match these to relevant support programmes
- Tailored guidance for north east schools combining national guidance with local materials and case studies
- Published evaluation
The Education Endowment Foundation has appointed a dedicated team to run the Programme in the north east and also set up a North East Advisory Board.
For information on the North East Primary Literacy Campaign go to :- educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/north-east-literacy-campaign
The Education Endowment Foundation is a charity set up in 2011 by the Sutton Trust as lead foundation in partnership with Impetus Trust, with a Department for Education grant of £125m. It is dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement.
For information on the Education Endowment Foundation go to:- educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk