We  can make a real difference to disadvantaged children’s attainment and to their lives.
In the current economic climate getting children to understand and enjoy the power of language is more important than ever. It is children suffering from poverty and its damaging educational consequences who are most likely to lack access to literature and creative confidence with words. Our work aims to help to break this cycle of deprivation.

• We work with up to 100,000 children annually in up to 300 schools across the country.
• Last year almost 60% of the children we reached were in schools with above average take-up of free school meals.
• To ensure that our work reaches the children who are most in need of our help, we offer substantial subsidies to schools whose free school meal take-up is over 30%. (The national average is 13.6% for primaries, 10.3% for secondaries.)  The subsidies have been generously provided by trusts and foundations.
• Our artists, a third of whom are from African, Caribbean and Asian backgrounds, go into schools as role models for disillusioned and unconfident children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Performance poet Adisa’s workshop was a revelation to Key Stage Two children last year. They responded,

“We can do poetry and it can come in interesting ways. You need to have wonder to be a writer.”
“Poetry is fun, you can make it out of anything. Just because you are in the wrong place, that isn’t what you are, don’t be like everyone else be yourself.”

Our most recent evaluative results demonstrate the impact our work has on children.

• On average 47% of children who felt they did not enjoy poems and stories, no longer feel this after a CDC workshop.
• On average 31% of children who felt they could not be a writer when they grow up, no longer feel this after a CDC workshop.
• On average 36% of children who felt they could not write, no longer feel this after a CDC workshop.
• On average 34% more children feel they could be a writer when they grow up after a CDC workshop.
• On average 17% more children feel they can write after a CDC workshop.

Trusts and Foundations

Our work would not be possible without the generous support of trusts and foundations. We are very grateful to our supporters, whose assistance is crucial in allowing us to keep developing and to keep reaching the children who are most in need of our help.

Teachers as writing and storytelling role models project
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Turn the Page disadvantage subsidy project
The Austin and Hope Pilkington Trust; The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation; The Equitable Charitable Trust; The Ernest Cook Trust; The Evan Cornish Foundation; The Goldsmiths’ Company; Hedley Foundation.

Other funders
Armourers and Brasiers’ Gauntlet Trust; Brigadier And Mrs DV Phelps Charitable Settlement; The Brook Trust; The Burges Salmon Charitable Trust; Chapman Charitable Trust; The Christopher Laing Foundation; The Coutts Charitable Trust; The Golden Bottle Trust; The Jessie Spencer Trust; The Lindsay Foundation; The Liz And Terry Bramall Charitable Trust; The Lynn Foundation; The Marsh Christian Trust; Matthew Hodder Charitable Trust; The Maud Elkington Charitable Trust; The Miles Trust; The Woodroffe Benton Foundation.