Cuppa with a Change Maker
Stuart: For the love of books and equality...
You pour the brew, I’ll provide the content
In these ‘Cuppa with a Change Maker’ blogs, I’ll feature a guest that is passionate about social justice and tackling educational inequality.
In this blog, Stuart Mayle (Headteacher at Brambles Primary Academy) reflects on the value of events like World Book Day and how the school ensures every child has access to a love of books.
The cost of butter has increased by 39p since January 2024, likewise, a box of tea bags has increased by 12p, eggs by 14p per dozen and meat and fish by nearly £1 per kilogram (Office for National Statistics. 2025).
This is something that has hit families hard across the country but most particularly in those areas of greatest disadvantage.
Those of us working on the frontline in education have seen the impact of it.
Budgets seem to stretch less and less each year and livelihoods impacted because the cost of everything has increased exponentially. And yet its is imperative we provide children with opportunities and experiences conducive to developing them academically and personally.
We simply cannot afford to cut back on the provision and opportunities we provide to children and families. They deserve it.
The cost of loving books
World Book Day is a firm example. Schools open the dress code to include costumes linked to books, some even identify particular books from particular authors. These are amazing days and for those of us who are educationalists they are the fun times that truly fill our cups.
Yet, as school leaders, it is our absolute responsibility to consider the impact this can have on our communities. Especially for our low-income families.
The average cost of a child's costume ranges from £15 to £30. This is a significant expense for many families across the country. We especially know this at Brambles Primary Academy as we serve a community that is feeling the pain of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis and rising energy bills.
However, there are creative and inclusive alternatives that not only ease the financial burden but also foster greater family involvement. These options can strengthen families, enhance parental engagement, and offer uplifting, feel-good moments for teachers, school leaders, and families alike.
Rewriting opportunities
In recent years, as a whole-school we have embraced the traditional approach to World Book Day, with children, and even school leaders, joining in the fun by coordinating themed costumes, from Alice Through the Looking Glass to Mary Poppins. This year, however, we wanted to take a different approach. One that not only eases the financial pressure on our community but also creates opportunities for teamwork, connection, and a stronger sense of family spirit by involving the wider community.
We invested in plain white t-shirts for every child, with which they designed and created their own ‘costume’ linked to a book.
Throughout the week building up to World Book Day, these t-shirts went home, and children worked with parents/carers to finish their designs. We also provided them with the felt tip markers needed to complete their designs (these were existing felt tips school already had in stock).
This not only meant children had to choose a book to base their designs on, but they also had to have read it to understand it enough to be able to base a design on it – a double win, if you consider the need to focus on comprehension and inference.
As a slight aside, the access to high quality texts has been carefully thought through so that there are many opportunities exist both in and out of school for children. So, for the grand sum of £475 spent by the academy, every child had a costume that costed exactly the same, no one was left out and all had the opportunity to engage with staff at school (who also designed t-shirts) and those at home.
Whilst initially there was some reservation from a small number of families about not dressing up, there were huge amounts of parents who purposely reached out to thank us not only for sourcing the resources but giving them the chance to work on something with their children. For us, this really matters.
By centring the celebration around a single, whole-school focus on a wordless book and encouraging pupils to create and perform raps inspired by popular texts, the result was a joyful, high-energy experience for all.
Best of all, it came at zero cost to families, aside from the most valuable investment of all… quality time spent with loved ones.
But don’t just take my word for it here’s Confidence’s reflection on the impact of this year’s World Book Day.
On World Book Day, we did loads of fun stuff!
First, we got to design t-shirts with our parents, and the school gave us plain shirts to decorate based on our favourite books. It was awesome seeing everyone’s creative designs! Then, we learned and performed raps about popular books. I love performing and it was so much fun and everyone was really supportive.
We also did some work on this cool book called Flotsam. The pictures were amazing, and we got to talk about the story and what we thought it meant. It was such a fun day, and I felt like I really got to celebrate reading!
Confidence: Pupil at Brambles Primary Academy
About the author
Stuart Mayle is Headteacher at Brambles Primary Academy, Tees Valley Education. He is passionate about research informed approaches to understanding and tackling educational inequality.
Stuart is currently working alongside Sean Harris and the Education Endowment Foundation on a project looking at how leaders can develop and implement a package of support for staff across a trust to increase engagement with evidence and further develop teaching and learning, particularly in relation to tackling educational inequality.
He is also a co-author of the recently published Tackling Poverty and Disadvantage in Schools, in which Stuart reflects on how schools can craft a curriculum with disadvantage in mind.
