Our Community Volunteer Reading Mentors Programme in partnership with the Bideford Learning Community
Photograph and caption courtesy of reading matters (www,readingmatters.org.uk) who will be delivering the training and support for this programme
This is an ideal programme for parents, school governors and other community members who are able to commit some time to giving one-to-one reading mentoring to disadvantaged pupils. Through participation in this programme you will gain the skills and understanding to provide effective and timely support to encourage struggling readers. The training also provides an opportunity for community volunteers to demonstrate work experience and gain national accreditation for their learning. The main skills and knowledge gained includes:
Identification of reading difficulties - How to work one-to-one effectively – Choose appropriate reading resources- How to carry out a simple reading age test – Understand the negative impact of poor reading skills on self confidence and self esteem – Gain an insight into the Literacy Curriculum – Understand safeguarding children procedures.
To become a Community Volunteer Reading Mentor you will need to:
1 - Attend a one-day accredited training session to be held at The Keystone Centre, Gammaton Road, East the Water, Bideford EX39 2AT on either Wednesday 6th or Thursday 7th July 2011 – commencing at 9.30 am and finishing at 3.30pm (we are holding two one-day training sessions – each for up to 15 attendees). These are run by a specialised charity and social enterprise called Reading Matters (www.readingmatters.org.uk ) of Bradford. There is no charge to the volunteer for this training.
2 - Then, once CRB checks have been successfully concluded by the participating school at which you will be volunteering – you will be ready to start your role as a Community Volunteer Reading Mentor, working on a term-by-term basis from September 2011.
Each Community Volunteer Reading Mentor will be expected to deliver one-to-one mentoring sessions twice each week during term time. Each session will consist of two half-hour mentoring periods with two different pupils who will have been selected by the school as being most likely to benefit from this programme. These pupils will each receive this individual attention over a ten-week/one-term period. The process will be repeated each term with two different pupils receiving the same individual attention. The timetable for this will be worked out individually between the school involved and the individual volunteer.
We appreciate that due to other commitments it will not always be possible for each Community Volunteer Reading Mentor to regularly deliver one-to-one mentoring through an entire ten-week/one-term period. As continuity over a 10-week/one term period is essential if the programme is to have the desired outcome for each participating pupil, we would advise volunteer mentors, under these circumstances, to simply ‘take a break’ for an entire term and return to the programme the following term.
Through the Bideford Learning Community we will be appointing a coordinator to ensure that both mentor and pupil are able to adhere to the planned programme timetable. For your reference, the following schools from the Bideford Learning Community will be participating:
St Helen’s Primary School, Abbotsham - Appledore Primary School –Bideford College - East-the-Water Primary School - Harland Primary School - Instow Primary School - St Margaret’s Junior School, Northam - St Mary’s C of E Primary School, Bideford - Westcroft Junior School - Woolsery Primary School
We are happy to help you liaise with whichever school would be the most suitable for you to work with. Please note that places for the Community Volunteer Reading Mentors training will be limited and the final say as to who will be the most suited to attend will rest with the individual schools.
For further information please contact:
Barry Evetts
Chair, BookRelief UK
Tel (01237) 477728 Email: barry.evetts@tiscali.co.uk
or
Bob Fancourt
Chair, Bideford Learning Community
c/o St Mary’s C of E Primary School, Bideford
Tel (01237) 477288 Email: chair.bidefordlc@gmail.com
or
The head teacher at any of the participating schools within the Bideford Learning Community.
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Our North Devon Schools Reading Programme
Photo credit: Appledore Primary School
According to the National Literacy Trust, twenty percent of 11-year-olds do not currently achieve the success in reading and writing expected of their age, and this figure can be considerably higher in areas or social and economic deprivation.
In a recent survey of 8000 pupils conducted by the NLT it was found that disadvantaged children were twice as likely to have ten or fewer books at home and had more negative attitudes to reading, were less able to find books to interest them, and were likely to find reading boring.
To counteract this trend, and help prepare children for the inevitability of adult life in an information age - where literacy is imperative for their future livelihood - BookRelief UK coordinates extra-curricular reading programmes for year 6 kids at local schools. We began these at Appledore Primary School and East-the-Water Primary School in October 2007 with the NLT's Reading is Fundamental (RIF) programmes. Over the 2008/09 school year we ran a similar programme with the same two schools and also added St Mary's CofE Primary School in Bideford.
We are now working to expand this programme - which allows each participating pupil to choose one book per term on a subject of their choice. The books they choose are theirs to keep - thus instilling a sense of pride in book ownership.
We believe that reading should be fun - and should hold a child's interest and attention: so we will work with participating schools to arrange a series of author or storyteller events over the school year. To encourage more participation from the writing community, we are now inviting local authors - published, unpublished - or just plain aspiring and looking for an audience - as well as storytellers with an interesting tale to tell - to join a programme that will help us deliver more author and storyteller events.
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Our Books Overseas Programme
Photo credit: Phil Pugsley - Amigos International
We hate to see books go to landfill - especially when there are book famines in many developing countries. To counter this we have begun a programme to collect, sort, store and ship appropriate used educational and reading books to needy schools, colleges and libraries in third-world countries. To do this effectively we work in conjunction with groups such as Barnstaple-based Amigos International, London based African Revival, the Gesar Foundation and Glad's House - an orphanage in Mombasa, Kenya.
We are always happy to hear from othger organisations and groups who work at a grassroots hands-on level to deliver aid projects in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in the developing world - and if their projects include the provision of educational, reading or children's books we will be pleased to help supply these.
Our Books Overseas Programme also provides a number of opportunities for volunteers to help us in our local endeavours. We need help from people with a car or van who can from time to time assist in collecting books and delivering them to a suitable place for storage, as well as help with sorting and cataloging books and in packing them for shipment.
If you are interested in donating suitable books for our Books Overseas Programme, please click through to our Book Donation Guidelines below.