Can you crowdfund research?
I’m very lucky to be working on a project at the moment that, if I’d have been asked to describe my ideal piece of work, couldn’t really have ticked any more boxes…
Helping children to develop a love for reading and books and stories? CHECK
Improving outcomes for young people? CHECK
Making a difference within my local community? CHECK
Addressing the disadvantage gap that, this year, has been made almost cavernous as a result of COVID-19? CHECK
Broadening the reach, diversity and inclusivity of an exciting and engaging cultural event that brings amazing authors and illustrators to my home-town? CHECK
And, if you said I could do all that by working with one Bedford’s most inspirational community leaders who also happens to be a Rachael…
Let me explain!
The background…
Rachael Rogan has run BookTastic, the only annual children’s literature festival of its kind within Bedfordshire (and a good distance beyond that, I’d say) for the last 6 years. In that time, she has brought the likes of Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell, illustrator Chris Riddell, bestselling author Philip Pullman, and many, many more to the town. She has created vibrant two-day events where Bedford’s children have been able to meet their literary heroes whose stories they love, ask them obscure questions, take part in activities that bring their imaginations to life and hear them read from their latest books.
As in most sectors, however, COVID has pretty much decimated the live cultural events scene. Festivals haven’t been seen for a long time now, and we don’t know when things will return to normal for it to be safe for them to make a comeback. Undeterred, however, Rachael moved Booktastic online last summer, and streamed a diverse programme of workshops via YouTube to 1,000s of subscribers.
This year, BookTastic 2021 will be a virtual event again and it promises to be bigger and even better. This is largely thanks to a generous contribution from a provider of international virtual conferences, EventsAir, who are supporting with their online event tech.
So, what’s the problem?
According to the most recent set of Key Stage 2 data released by the Department for Education, only 54% of Bedford's 11-year-olds achieve the expected standards in reading, writing and maths. Using this measure, this places Bedford Borough last out of 150 Local Authorities.
The extensive disruption to young people’s education brought about by Covid-19 has exacerbated this. Interim research into the impact of school closures on attainment (published by NfER last month) suggested that year 2 pupils’ (aged 6-7) attainment in reading was significantly lower in autumn 2020 compared to a standardised sample from 2017; representing a Covid-19 gap of around two months’ progress.
Within the same study, when NfER compared the attainment of pupils eligible and not eligible for Free School Meals (referred to as the disadvantage gap), they found that the gap in reading is now around seven months’ progress, which represents a widening when compared to Key Stage 1 data in 2019.
Research by the Education and Endowment Foundation finds that young people who participate in arts activities make, on average, two months more academic progress within a year than those who don't. They say that improved outcomes have been identified in English with greater effects, on average, for younger learners and, in some cases, for disadvantaged pupils.
BookTastic offers a powerful opportunity for families to connect with authors and illustrators through live literary events. Rachael’s festival delivers ways for children to engage with literature, bringing stories to life, and stimulating greater interest in reading.
This year we want to ensure that more of the children across Bedford who would benefit from coming to the festival are able to do so.
Our project…
BookTastic never struggles to attract families. There’s barely a spare seat in the room, and tickets sell out pretty much as soon as they go on sale. But we’ve noticed that the families that do come – and they come every year – all look very similar. They’re pretty much all white, middle class, and they have English as their first language. But this isn’t representative of Bedford, which is a very diverse town: 28.5% of the population is from a BAME community and over 100 languages are spoken.
We want to address this imbalance. And we also want to get the festival to those children we know would benefit the most from taking part. So Rachael and I have designed a programme of research that we are going to deliver through Bedford’s schools, particularly focusing on those in the more disadvantaged wards of the town.
With the support of the town’s amazing teachers, we are going to ask primary children to tell us how they feel about books. We want to know if they read, what they read, when they read. We’d like to know if they read with their families, or if they listen to stories online. We’d like to find out what sort of stories excite them, and what stories send them to sleep.
Then, once we’ve started this conversation, we want to go further. We’d like to know if the children in our town have heard of BookTastic and how they feel about watching it this year. We want to hear what would make them comfortable joining in with the event, and what we can do to make it as appealing as possible to them.
We are going to recruit a panel of primary school children to become a sounding board to BookTastic’s decision-making process. We’d like to encourage those children who would not normally put themselves forward for something like this to volunteer. It’s exactly those young people that we would like to involve in shaping the festival and how we promote it, both for the virtual event this year and for its eventual return to a real stage.
Eventually, we want to evaluate how we’ve done with making this year’s event even more inclusive and broadening the diversity of Booktastic’s audience. Are we getting to the children we want to reach? And, will the festival get their attention and make them want to read more?
So, we come to the serious bit. Can you crowdfund a research project?
We have already raised significant funds to get BookTastic running again this year. The Gale Family Charitable Trust has given us the money to pay for the authors’ fees for their participation in the festival. Bedford Educational Association has donated enough to cover the costs of live British Sign Language interpretation and closed captioning. EventsAir has pledged the use of its platform so we will be able to create an all-singing, all-dancing (all-reading?!) interactive two-day event that will look superb.
And, Bedford Borough Council’s Community Chest Fund has awarded us a small grant to begin to cover the costs of conducting our research.
But we need to raise more. We can’t afford to deliver the plans that we have without further sponsorship.
Do you know anyone whose Corporate Social Responsibility goals might overlap with what we are trying to do?
Do you know of any grant-giving bodies who might be interested in lending their support to our research?
Have you any ideas about how to raise funds to support social research?
Or, do you know someone else who might?
We would like to hear from you. Please drop us a line.