Reading Schools Fund

What do we want to fund?

We are looking to fund projects and purchases that will help your school achieve Reading School accreditation. Grants of up to £500 are available to purchase:

• Books or reading materials for your school
• Furnishings for reading spaces

This competitive Fund aims to allocate awards to 40 successful applications.

Eligibility criteria

The Reading Schools Fund is open to all state funded schools and grant-aided specialist provisions in Scotland that are working towards Reading School accreditation. In order to be eligible for funding you must have a submitted and approved action plan, and be actively working towards Reading School accreditation at Core, Silver or Gold level.

This Fund is not open to schools who were awarded funding in the 2022 or 2023 Reading Schools Fund.

How to apply

Step 1: Confirming your details

Your funding Key Contact should complete the short form to confirm you are currently working on your Reading Schools accreditation through an approved Action Plan and intend to continue to accreditation. You must also agree to administrate and manage any funds as outlined. 

Step 2: Reading Leadership Group submission

We want to hear from your Reading Leadership Group directly, and the format they choose for this is up to them – a drawing, poem, film, audio, animation, PowerPoint or Sway. Be as creative as you like but remember that this section of your application should be pupil-led. Entries will be judged on content not presentation but do have fun with it! 

• Films/audio/animations should be a maximum of 2 minutes and shared in an exported .MP4 or .MOV file format. You can share a link to a WeTransfer, or upload these to YouTube and share with us through a private link, added to the form. You can review YouTube guidance on uploading private video content(this will open in a new window) for technical support. Get inspired by our book reviews and trailers on film learning resource(this will open in a new window) and recent recorded webinar with IntoFilm(this will open in a new window).
• PowerPoint presentations should be a maximum of 10 slides (16MB), uploaded as a .PDF to the form. You can review Microsoft guidance on how to save a presentation as a .pdf(this will open in a new window).
• If you choose to share a Sway, please ensure that this contains less than 10 slides of information / fewer than 2 minutes of video content in total and shows clear design and leadership from your learners. Review Microsoft guidelines to ensure that we can view the Sway(this will open in a new window) before you share a link to it on your application.

Applications will not be accepted in incompatible file formats and may not be reviewed in full if they exceed the maximum content allocations.

Your submission should: 

• Provide the reasons for requesting funding for books and reading materials or furnishing for reading spaces
• Demonstrate how these resources will be accessed by children and young people across the school
• Show clear leadership from the group on this project, and that they have taken into account their peers across the school

Step 3: Supporting information from the key contact

The final short section of the form is to be completed by the Key Contact in support of the Reading Leadership Group submission.

Please be aware that we receive a high volume of applications for this fund, so this is your chance to support the Reading Leadership Group’s application with strategic oversight and context on your setting.

We anticipate a huge amount of interest in this fund so be creative to let your application stand out. Your submission should reflect the interests and expression of your pupils, whether they choose to draw a picture of their proposed reading space or take us on a walking tour of your existing library collection. Let them tell us how they want to use a fund for books and reading materials, and/or furnishings for reading spaces.

Applications will be assessed by an independent panel including representatives from Scottish Government and Education Scotland.

Other funding opportunities for schools from Scottish Book Trust

• Live Literature part-funded author events(this will open in a new window)
• Live Literature school residencies(this will open in a new window)
• Sensory Stories Fund(this will open in a new window)
• Fully-funded ASN Schools Residencies(this will open in a new window)