New school grants offered by Siobhan Dowd Trust

The Siobhan Dowd Trust will this year offer a £1,000 monthly grant for schools to spend in local bookshops.

The grants are open to any schools or organisations that work with disadvantaged young people and the money must be spent on children’s or YA books in local bookstores. Instead of organising the grants by region, like last year, the trust will give one grant a month to any school in the UK.

The winner of January’s grant will be announced on 1st March.

To enter, schools must email the trust with information about what they do encourage their pupils to love reading, as well as “demonstrate disadvantage”.

The Siobhan Dowd Trust was set up in 2007 by author Siobhan Dowd to help young people enjoy literature. Dowd died in 2008 but all proceeds from the sales of her books, as well as a proportion of the proceeds from A Monster Calls, which was written by Patrick Ness from an idea of Dowd’s, go to the trust.

The grants scheme was launched last year. At the time, director Kate Powling said: “We want to reward schools that can demonstrate good practice when it comes to promoting reading as well as working with vulnerable or disadvantaged children.”