Wortley Hall Remembered - 7 July 2011

Some of our partner schools and Fay, one of our Reading Mentors, are involved in a Summer Show of drama, history and music at Wortley Hall on 7 July 2011. Sounds like a great evening out. Download a pdf programme.

Reading Leader's Celebration | Sheffield, December 16 2009

As promised in my previous post about the great results of our Character Profile activity, here are some photos from our celebration event which took place on 16 December at Sheffield Town Hall.

As well as the fabulous author Alan Gibbons, Councillor Andrew Sangar, people from Barrington Stoke, Reading Matters employees and Sheffield Council personnel, the most important people in attendance where the staff and Reading Leaders from Sheffield schools:

• Handsworth Grange School
• Heritage Park Community School
• King Ecgbert School
• Silverdale School
• Stocksbridge High School

It sounds like Alan Gibbons has had a busy month, that is set to continue. He is writing a new Barrington Stoke book, The Dying Photo, based on a blurb written by James Pybis of Our Lady's and St Philomena's Primary School in Liverpool, as part of The Book Factor project. I first read about this on the Write Away website, so thanks to them.

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.