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 exam board Pearson to incentivise schools across the country to change the text they teach at GCSE or A Level to a book by a writer of colour through the ‘Lit in Colour Pioneers’ programme, reaching 10,000 students nationwide
Supporting our partners exam board OCR to add new set texts to their GCSE and A Level curriculum from September 2022
Collaborating with Oxford University Press to help equip primary school teachers and parents with the tools they need to introduce more diverse books and stories to younger children

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
Giving primary schools the tools they need to create an inclusive culture of reading for pleasure through our Puffin World of Stories programme with the National Literacy Trust 
Convening a wide range of expert partners in this space to continue the conversation through our external advisory board

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 is the UK’s largest awarding body. Over 25% of set texts offered by Pearson at GCSE (9-1) for English literature comprise authors of colour, and over the next two years we will be working in partnership with Pearson to incentivise and support 100 secondary schools across the UK to integrate a new text by a Black, Asian or minority ethnic writer into their English Literature curriculum, from September 2021 - reaching over 10,000 students. Click here to find out more the Lit in Colour Pioneers pilot.

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.