Take part in this year's Summer Reading Challenge to help keep your classes reading!

Recent research shows that only 1 in 3 children and young people now enjoy reading, a drop of 33% since 2005 (Clark et al, 2024) and 1 in 4 children in the UK cannot read well by age 11.

The Reading Agency and public libraries are working to change this with the Summer Reading Challenge - a free, UK-wide programme.

Why should your school take part?

By encouraging your pupils to join in, you'll help make reading a fun and rewarding part of their summer. In 2024, nearly 600,000 children took part. Together, we can make 2025 even bigger and get even more children fired up about reading!

Benefits for pupils, families and your school include:

• Prevents the summer 'dip' in reading and aids the successful transition to new year groups and key stages.
• Significantly improves children's reading skills and confidence
• Simple and free for every child to take part, and libraries run free activities for families throughout the holidays.
• Libraries can share the reading for pleasure data they have access to (percentage of children who take part in the challenge, broken down by school).

2025 is all about the magic of nature!

This year's Challenge is about nature, the outdoors, storytelling - and reading! Children can collect their own sticker booklet (full of fantastical artwork by award-winning illustrator Dapo Adeola) to start their Challenge from the library.

Norfolk libraries will be hosting themed events and activities over the holidays for children and families taking part, with lots of opportunities to find new books and have fun learning about nature.

The Summer Reading Challenge launches on Saturday 5 July - download this information pack (PDF, 7 MB) to find out how your school can get involved

Your local library may also be able to support you with an assembly promoting the challenge to children.

Resources

The Reading Agency has made several resources available to help you promote the Summer Reading Challenge in your school - download them at the links below:

• A4 poster (PDF, 3 MB)
• A3 poster (PDF, 6 MB)
• School assembly presentation (Powerpoint, 8 MB)
• Flyer for parents (PDF, 2 MB)
• Nature spotting flyer (PDF, 9 MB)

If you have any questions about the Summer Reading Challenge in Norfolk libraries, please contact libraries@norfolk.gov.uk