Scholastic UK
Who we are
Our Education team specialise in publishing high-quality reading programmes and home
learning resources. We offer impartial advice to the school and trust sector on
how to teach children to read.
We do that in
three ways:
1. Our Scholastic Reading Audit is a comprehensive, independent and
research-backed reading audit, designed to challenge and support trusts and schools
in the teaching and leading of reading.
2. The Daily Reading Lesson is designed to help primary school
leaders, and primary school trusts, understand the issues surrounding the
teaching of reading to children between the ages of 6 and 11.
3. A series
of virtual Reading CPD sessions aimed at trust
and school professionals.
We also work
with schools through:
- Book
Fairs, giving everyone in
the school, especially those who may not go to bookshops, the chance to see,
fall in love with and buy the very best children’s books. Every book sold at a Scholastic
Book Fair earns the school up to 60% in rewards to spend on books for the
classroom and school library. We have given more than 22 million free books to
schools, and over £6 million in 2021-22. Schools often have one or two Fairs
per year.
- Book
Clubs, a great way to
continue the reading habit all year around. In the case of our Book Clubs, we
create a bespoke selection of highly discounted books for children, parents and
teachers to choose from. Schools earn up to 20% in rewards for every £1 spent.
- Home Learning, designed
to help parents and children navigate a tricky world of learning, tests
and exams. Our carefully balanced range of practice, revision and
test books support children’s education at home and in school. Whether you are looking to
better a child’s phonics skills or help them prepare for GCSE exams, the range is designed to encourage learners at every age and stage.
Scholastic has
been serving schools since 1920. We believe that reading is a critical part of
children’s learning and growth. With support from teachers, parents and
schools, children choose from Scholastic the books they want to read, and
discover the pleasure and power of reading. To that end, our sole focus is to
publish the best children’s books, provide fun, engaging and innovative ways to
access those books, and help teachers teach children so that when they do read
that book they fall in love with reading again and again and again. Our rewards
programme is unique, and no other school supplier offers what we do in terms of
free books to schools. Through the Reading Audit, Daily Reading Lesson and virtual
CPD we aim to keep these resources independent of any Scholastic ‘voice’ to
ensure that teachers have access to the best possible support for the
classroom.
What we do
Further
information on our services for trusts:
- Our Scholastic Reading Audit is a comprehensive, independent and
research-backed reading audit, designed to challenge and support trusts and schools
in the teaching and leading of reading. Over 1,500 schools have taken our
audit, which is entirely independent and free from any Scholastic editorial
control. We also run a Reading Audit for school trusts which aggregates the data from the
school audits into one strategic report for the Trust Improvement Lead. There
is no cost for the school level reading audit. We do charge for the Trust level
audit of £100 per school within the trust, however CST members only pay £50 per
school.
- The Daily Reading
Lesson is designed to
help primary school leaders, and primary school trusts, understand the issues
surrounding the teaching of reading to children between the ages of 6 and 11.
It provides leaders and teachers with a blueprint for successful, robust and
evidence-based teaching that leads to higher outcomes, with the benefit of lower
teacher workload. It presents a model that can be applied in every classroom,
enabling every teacher to develop deeper knowledge of teaching children to read
as well as giving the best teachers the freedom to thrive and adapt to the
needs of their children and communities.
- In September
2021 we launched a series of virtual Reading
CPD sessions. We have hosted over 20 workshops since then drawing on
worldwide literacy experts and have built a library of high-quality accredited
CPD training covering almost all areas of the teaching of reading. The sessions
are free when broadcast and we have had thousands of schools join us live. We
put the recordings into our Resource Bank following the sessions. CST members
are welcome to a 25% discount on subscriptions to access these resources.
How we help
Our organisational ethos, and reason for being, is around reading
being a critical part of children’s learning and growth. For over 100 years,
Scholastic has been helping children learn to read and love to read. The
Scholastic Reading Hub breaks down the building blocks of reading, showing the
research behind each one and bridging theory and practice with highly effective
and research-based resources. As well as the development of trust-specific services, as the
‘home of reading’ we are committed to publishing thought leadership
reports, blogs
and offering free webinars for the sector. The most recent report, and one we will
repeat, has been our ‘Key issues and trends in the
teaching of reading’ based
on responses from our Reading Audit. Summarising the first four years’ of data,
this gave participating schools insight and national benchmarks for every
aspect of reading. We would like to engage CST members in this work.
Find out more about
Scholastic’s programme of virtual, accredited, and free CPD workshops to
support your English curriculum.
