Writing
The National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy Survey of more than 76,000 UK children and young people revealed that, in 2024:
- Fewer than 3 in 10 (28.7%) 8 to 18-year-olds say they enjoy writing in their free time – the lowest level recorded by the charity since it first started asking children about their writing in 2010.
- 1 in 9 (11.1%) say they write daily in their free time, halving in the past 12 months (19.3% in 2023).
- 1 in 3 (35.7%) say they rarely or never write in their free time, a troubling increase of 55% (12.7 percentage points) in the same time.
Jonathan Douglas CBE, Chief Executive of the National Literacy Trust, said:
“With children and young people’s enjoyment of writing at an all-time low, and high numbers leaving primary and secondary school without the writing skills they need to thrive, children’s futures are being put at risk.
It is interesting to note that their research found that enjoyment of reading in school is improving: more than half of children and young people (53.6%) now say they enjoy writing at school, a 22% (9.7 percentage points) uplift in just the past year.
The report is available on their website, here.
Reading
The 2024 What Kids Are Reading report from Renaissance uses data from almost 6,500 schools and 1,300,000 students. They conclude that there has been a 4.4% decrease in the number of books read by pupils year-on-year. When they do read, however, they are searching for more representative and aspirational role models from authors inlcuding Marcus Rashford, Maria Isabel Sanchez, and Bryan Patrick Avery.
dsga.org.uk 