Last night we celebrated with our partner Coram Beanstalk and applauded them for 50 years of giving children skills for the future.

Through the dedication of their community volunteers, and the help of their founders, they have supported over 250,000 primary children to become confident, independent readers via one-to-one reading sessions.

Over the life of Coram Beanstalk that has been at least 12,614,400 volunteer hours provided by 77,000 individuals. All made possible by the sustained commitment of thousands of schools and the generosity of companies and individuals.

In 1973, Susan Belgrave MBE launched a reading scheme into schools in London with the support of seven volunteers. Her simple idea of providing one-to-one reading her in a relaxed session outside of the classroom, still work today for thousands of reluctant readers.

Coram Beanstalk works with children, age 3 to 13 as a long-term partner to schools across England.

In primary, Coram Beanstalk focuses its help where and how it will make the biggest difference - in development of language, confidence, vocabulary, and reading habits for infants, as well as boosting engagement with meaning and love of reading in primary ages.

In secondary, children are supported by one-to-one reading mentors to enable them to cement their progress and form more confident engagement and learning in years seven or eight. They are directly supported by an older peer, who is trained and developed as part of
the Reading Leaders programme, enabling the older mentors in turn to improve their own reading skills and confidence, and develop their career readiness.

Sir Michael Morpurgo: “It’s the one-to-one connection which opens up the pathway to empathy, to understanding, to knowledge. It’s the big educational tool… a wonderful way of having for the rest of your life,
the power of connecting with great literature and ideas, and of course knowledge. To make a pathway for children like this has been truly revolutionary. Above all, it’s about people passing on the love of reading. All power to Coram Beanstalk!”

We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves!

@beanstalkreads
#CoramBeanstalk50
#CreatingReaders