Five years of Book Clubs in Schools

We were pleased to join Book Clubs in Schools – one of our long-term partner organisations – in celebrating their 5th birthday last month.

We’ve been working with the peer-to-peer mentoring programme since 2014 and thought we would look back at our work together over the last 5 years. We asked Book Clubs in Schools to recap:

Give a Book is integral to our current Book Clubs in Schools format and allows us to reach the most disadvantaged students to build character and communication skills and promote a love of reading.

Since September 2018, 16 schools and over 1,500 students have benefitted from receiving books to use for the BCiS programme. Books belong to the school and are therefore reused for future Book Clubs, so the reach is thousands of students over the school year.

Book Clubbers

68% enjoy reading more

61% make new friends

Nearly 60% feel more confident speaking and debating

Book Club Leaders

Over 80% feel able to facilitate conversations and ensure that all students are included

73% feel more confident

All of them would recommend becoming a Book Club Leader to others

“Ark Academy is pleased to be participating in Book Clubs in Schools, which has enabled us to grant students’ access to books which would not otherwise have been possible. As a result, Book Clubbers have demonstrated higher levels of engagement with the school library, and more positive attitudes to reading in general.”

—Librarian, Ark Academy (reading Liccle Bit by Alex Wheatle)

“Book clubs is about more than ‘just reading’, it’s about building bonds and friendships between children of all ages. It builds confidence in the Book Club Leaders and helps them develop leadership skills. They are challenged to be patient, charismatic and empathetic. They get just as much out of it as the children in the club!”

—Teacher at King’s College School Wimbledon (reading The Switch, Wonder and Holes, in partnership with Merton Abbey Primary School)