Interplay Leeds Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting 2

I said in my last post about our recent Volunteer Reading Mentors Meeting at Interplay in Leeds, I would share my short presentation. So here it is:

Reading Matters Presentation - Interplay 10-12-09

My overall message was that, despite so many changes, in schools, government and at Reading Matters, the need for us to keep on improving reading skills and changing lives is as great as ever.

In fact, the week after our meeting there was a flurry of news stories about how thousands of boys start secondary school 'barely able to read', the BBC report highlighted some of Reading Matters core areas of work. For example, in Rotherham 14% of 11-year-old boys in state schools did not reach level three in their reading tests this summer, this means they were at the level expected of a seven-year-old.

It is true that 'raw data' from the controversial SATS reading tests will not provide the full story, but headlines like these indicate there are still huge numbers of children and young people in primary and secondary schools that do not have special educational needs but still need extensive support for them to reach their full potential in life.

The next part of my presentation shows that through Reading Matters Reading Mentors, Reading Leaders and other programmes, we do reach these young people with simple, targeted and effective support. In fact in the the 2009-10 academic year we supported 3768 children and young people.

The last 12 months we have won a number of awards and accolades that back this up, including the Yorkshire Forward Creating Better Future Awards 2010 and Business Link Social Enterprise Awards 2009. But even more important to me is the feedback form the schools we work in:

“The Reading Matters scheme not only improves the reading ability of all students involved, it also creates a fantastic reading culture, promoting responsibility and maturity”. Sheffield School Co-ordinator at
Firth Park Community College.

Like all everyone to continue to meet our objectives, Reading Matters is finding new and innovative ways of working and new partners such as the Summer Reading Challenge, Special Schools and Foster Carers. Having said that, we will be drawing the line at canine support.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Fantastic Sheffield Reading Leaders

Over the last few days I have been meeting some of the Reading Leaders from Sheffield schools. I have been helping them gain the National Open College Network Qualification that they get for their Reading Mentoring work.

I visited Wisewood School a little while ago. This week I visited Seven Hills, Firth Park and Fir Vale and next week I am off to City and Silverdale Schools.

It has been great to hear about the really successful reading partnership work that has been going on. Well done to everyone.

At Fir Vale they had a great display about the project:

Character Profiles - One-to-one Reading Partnerships in Sheffield Schools

At the end of last term (16 December 2009) we held a celebration event for all the Reading Leaders we have trained in Sheffield schools this year. It was a fantastic event with author Alan Gibbons giving an inspired presentation, more like a comedy routine than a writer talking about his work. I'll give some more details when I get the photos through. In the meantime I wanted to share another activity we undertook with all the reading mentors we supported last year, over 200 of them!

All of the Sheffield mentors and their partners had the opportunity to complete a character profile about someone they read about together, and we have compiled the results into a book that you can read and download online:

Celebration event for Reading Leaders at Sheffield Town Hall with Leader of the Council Paul Scriven

A great event took place yesterday (21/10/08), I was in a posh room in the Town Hall with 80 or so Reading Leaders and their teachers, Paul Scriven the Leader of Sheffield Council and a bunch of other council staff. All the Reading Leaders (generally pupils in years 10 or 11) who have been partnering younger pupils in reading sessions were presented with a certificate by Paul Scriven. As I said in my very short little speech, it was excellent to see so many young people taking on some responsibility and giving up their time and energy to support other children.

It was obviously something that touched a nerve with Paul Scriven, who had taken time out of what must be a busy schedule to come and talk to the Reading Leaders, and as he said, the next time some one moans about all youngsters being knife wielding hoodies, we will have a perfect counter argument.


There were nearly 100 Reading Leaders in attendance from Abbeydale Grange, Firth Park Community Arts College, King Ecgbert School, Meadowhead School and Stocksbridge High School.