About Lit in Colour

Publishing free, interactive teaching resources for all ages
Donating thousands of books to schools across the country
Working in partnership with all four exam boards in England: Pearson, OCR, Eduqas and AQA to support students' access to writers of colour through book donations and author events at schools and colleges
Working with exam board Pearson on the ‘Lit in Colour Pioneers’ programme, reaching 29,000 students nationwide
Collaborating with specialist distributors Peters to provide Lit in Colour book packs at a discounted rate for schools

Joining forces with Bloomsbury to introduce new plays and teacher support that will create more representative and inclusive drama experiences within the English curriculum. Find out more here
Convening a wide range of expert partners in this space to continue the conversation through our external advisory board
Working with educational resource platforms Twinkl and Tes to provide classroom ready materials to support the teaching of books by writers of colour

The Runnymede Trust is the UK’s leading race equality think tank. It aims to challenge race inequality through research, debate and policy development. It engages in many policy areas including education. 

Pearson, the UK’s largest awarding body, is at the forefront of diversifying the curriculum. In collaboration with Penguin Books UK and The Runnymede Trust, Pearson has helped emphasise the importance of a diverse English Literature curriculum. Our Lit in Colour Pioneers Programme, launched in 2021, has made significant strides in this area, supporting over 250 schools and 29,000 learners in studying texts by authors of colour.

Click here to find out more about the Lit in Colour Pioneers programme. 

The Black Writers’ Guild was set up in June 2020 and represents professional and emerging British writers of Black African and Black African-Caribbean descent. It aims to create a sustainable, profitable, and equal ecosystem of and for Black writers and literary talent in the UK.

OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA) is a leading UK awarding body, providing a range of qualifications to meet the needs of learners of all ages and abilities. OCR qualifications include AS/A Levels, GCSEs, and vocational qualifications such as Cambridge Nationals and  Cambridge Technicals. Well over half a million students gain OCR qualifications every year, which are offered by nearly 6,000 centres including schools, sixth form colleges, FE colleges, training providers, voluntary organisations, local authorities, and businesses. OCR is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group which is a department of the University of Cambridge. We will be working with them as they continue to diversify the texts they offer across their English Literature GCSE and A Level specifications.

The National Literacy Trust is a charity dedicated to improving the literacy skills of those who need it most. Penguin and the National Literacy Trust have worked in partnership for over a decade, including developing Puffin World of Stories to re-imagine primary school libraries and inspire children to fall in love with reading. Building on the charity’s ongoing commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion, we will work together to embed the principles of Lit in Colour into our existing joint school programmes.

Oxford University Press (OUP) is a department of the University of Oxford. It is their mission to further the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education worldwide through a diverse publishing programme. We will be working with OUP to provide free practical support and tools for both primary school teachers and parents to increase confidence in teaching and discussing a more representative range of books.

Bloomsbury is the leading publisher in drama and the performing arts in the UK and is home to the globally recognised imprints of The RSC Shakespeare, Methuen Drama and Arden Shakespeare, reflecting the very best of global theatre from some of the world’s leading dramatists. The list continues to grow each year, introducing new playwrights and with thousands of plays, critical texts, course books and reference works, as well as the award-winning digital library Drama Online.  

Tes has been supporting schools and championing great teaching for more than 100 years. Today, Tes work with schools and teachers globally providing a wide range of software and services to help them flourish. Through their Black Experiences Hub, they are in partnership with BBC, Into Film, The Black Curriculum and the Lit in Colour campaign to help teachers bring more diverse experiences into their classrooms.

Twinkl was founded in 2010 with a mission ‘to help those who teach’. The company provides high-quality, online learning materials and services, which are all teacher-created and checked. They have partnered with Penguin to help educators bring new titles into their homes and classrooms by creating a large selection of free learning resources to support the Lit in Colour campaign. This is with the desire to engage and inspire a new generation of learners through these excellent, diverse, stories.

Eduqas is one of the largest providers of qualifications for schools, academies, sixth form and further education colleges across England, offering valued qualifications to suit a range of abilities. Each and every one of our qualifications is carefully designed to stimulate students and to equip them for the next stage of their lives. Our focus is ensuring that every decision made is the right one for teachers and their learners. We strive to work from the bottom up, always listening to what teachers need. This ensures that the work that we carry out is reflective of the needs of classrooms across the UK.

Since 1903, AQA have been designing fair, inclusive assessments. As the UK’s leading choice for GCSE English, used by 70% of schools, they are helping bring greater diversity to classrooms. But AQA are more than an exam board. As an independent education charity, they reinvest all income into research and innovation that improve assessment worldwide. From funding cutting-edge studies to supporting best practice in education, AQA are committed to making assessment fairer and more impactful for teaching, learning, and society.