Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that the UK government has announced that 2026 has been named the ‘Year of Reading’. Now… as a teacher and a reader, I have lots of positive thoughts about this, but I also have a lot of apprehension around this. Both of these I will get into in this post! I would love your thoughts too – share them in the comments or with me on Instagram (@thisgeordieteaches).

Right… let’s get started then!

Just to preface this: I’m coming at this with predominantly my teacher head and thinking about reading for pleasure for kids.

First off – why? what? when? how?

“The National Year of Reading 2026 is a UK-wide campaign designed to help more people rediscover the joy of reading.” (Go All In website)

It seems like the government is a bit concerned that we don’t, as a people, read much. I am quite lucky in that I am surrounded by people that read. Maybe I’m living in a microcosm, but I think people do read? Are there loads of people out there who haven’t picked up a book in years? Also, yes. People tell me ALL THE TIME that they’ve not read a book in “years” (which makes me so so sad because books are so so important!).

There is a massive list of companies who are on board for this (everyone from The National Literacy Trust, World Book Day, Amazon, various publishers, Spotify and DCM – Go All In – Partners) and it’s encouraging to see. Like that is a stacked list and if this is going to have any impact, it’s going to have to be backed by everyone. Seeing the range here from clearly audiobooks to physical books is so brilliant – I’m an avid physical book reader, but my wife loves an audio book.

The how is a bit more vague right now! The website is starting to fill up with ideas and things, but I’m still a bit like ‘but HOW are you doing this?’.

How are we getting books into people’s hands?
How are we supporting lower income households?
How are we supporting those outside of London?
How are we ensuring that everyone has equal access?

Once I know the answers to these questions then maybe I’ll be a little less sceptical, but right now I’m just like… yay but apprehension.

I am very much a realist in life and I know that attitudes to reading won’t change in a day, in a week or a month. For some people, their attitudes won’t change in a year. Do I love that the government are doing this? Yes, I absolutely do. I think it’s such an important step in acknowledging that reading has so many benefits (there have been many studies done over the years), but I just worry that it’s one of those things that are expected to change instantly… and that won’t be the case. If you want to change a whole community’s attitude towards something, you need to invest real time, money, effort and energy. The website claims that they are and that’s the hope. I hope that there is going to be an ACTUAL effort and not just a publicity stunt or lip service.

You might want to start by actually making sure libraries are open. There you have access for ALL to books for free. Like imagine that. Imagine having that facility and closing it THEN being like ‘OH NO! NO ONE IS READING!’ I wonder why that is… (I know I’m being pedantic and flippant there, but c’mon).

Coming at this from a teacher’s perspective: I know so many teachers who pay their own money to get books into the hands of their classes because school budgets just don’t stretch that far. This is NO fault of school leaders who have a million different priorities and not enough money to stretch to all of these priorities. Hell, my own class library is funded primarily by me and the amazing publishers who send me books. It’s also a common theme that schools don’t have libraries. I know this is something that is spoken about year on year and that “schools will all get a library” is something that is promised, but again… how? Who is paying? Some schools don’t have the space (my school certainly struggles!) or the functionality to make this happen. Something else which is a common struggle is time. We don’t have time to get them reading; the curriculum is too packed; there’s too many different things we have to make sure we get into the school day. As a member of SLT in my school, we are constantly being told that we need to do this extra thing and do this extra thing. Don’t get me started on assessments. I think I’ll take that head on one day. If you want children to start doing better in SATs papers, please can we think about making the extracts that are used in assessments a LITTLE bit more interesting? (That’s all I’m saying on this subject for now).

I have so much more to say… and I do have some ideas for helping in schools, but for now, I’m going to go and get off my soapbox and put my nose in a book!

I’d love to know your thoughts on this! Let me know in the comments or on Instagram!

S x