Archives: News & Views

It might be the school holidays but that’s no excuse to stop reading! This summer we will be sharing a few of our favourite children’s books to inspire some reading over the long summer holidays.

1. A Mouse Called Julian by Joe Todd-Stanton

“It’s a fun story about an unexpected friendship between a mouse and a fox. Following its natural behaviour, a fox attempts to eat Julian the mouse out of his house. When the fox tries to sneak into Julian’s burrow it finds itself stuck headfirst in Julian’s front door! What follows, is an involuntary entrapment of the fox which gives time for the two natural enemies to get to know and understand each other better.

I loved it so much that I created two picture boards for our Literacy Labs, illustrating the habits and behaviour of these two lovely animals. In our Literacy Labs, we work with disadvantaged children who for whatever reason are struggling to make progress in the classroom and are the furthest behind in their literacy skills. We learn about their background, their particular challenges and interests; we find out what sort of learner they are and adapt our teaching approach, using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic modes of learning to help the child overcome their learning barriers.

This book is a wonderful story of fierce enemies becoming understanding and life-long friends”.

“Next time you see a fox in your garden, it may be on its way to pay a home visit to a mouse friend!”

On 29th May this year, our Trustee Steven Artist took part in the Edinburgh Marathon.  Not only did Steven complete the course in an incredible time of 2 hours 50 minutes he also raised over £1,405 for our charity!

Steven has been a Trustee of The Children’s Literacy Charity since March 2017 and has been a supporter of our charity for many years.  Steven says, “This is a charity very close to my heart and one I have supported for the last 16 years due to the amazing work they do with disadvantaged children struggling with literacy.  Their intervention is genuinely life changing.

While I did not directly benefit from the charity’s amazing work, I know first-hand the value of early years intervention and 1:1 help having struggled significantly with literacy throughout my life. The support I was lucky enough to receive in my childhood changed my life and enabled my onward education and career.”

Thank you, Steven! Trustee… and now a fundraising superstar!

Steven is pictured with his sister, Jaclyn, who also completed the course in a very respectable 3 hours 26 minutes!

Inspired by Steven’s marathon efforts? Find out how you can take on your own challenge and raise funds for The Children’s Literacy Charity. Here: https://thechildrensliteracycharity.org.uk/fundraise/

Before the May half term break, Literacy Lab pupils enjoyed a variety of crafts and activities to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.  Activities included creating their own bookmarks and writing poems. Some of the children also completed a Jubilee inspired writing challenge – spelling out the word Jubilee! We love ‘E is for eating cake’! 

Wishing Her Majesty, The Queen a very happy Platinum Jubilee from everyone at The Children’s Literacy Charity!

We would like to say a huge congratulations to our amazing tutor, Andrea who has been awarded a Girdlers’ Medallion, in recognition of her work for our charity! In May each year the Girders’ Company Charitable Trust holds its Prizegiving evening at Girdlers’ Hall.  Medallions are presented by the Master Girdler to individuals in recognition of their talents and endeavours. Each winner is nominated by one of the charities whose work the Trust supports on a long term basis.

Starting out as a volunteer for our charity, 14 years ago after her son was supported through our literacy programme, Andrea is now Senior Literacy Intervention Tutor at our Literacy Lab at Mauldeth Road Primary School in Manchester.

Andrea’s one-to-one tuition has become integral to our support programme for those children who have struggled with reading and who have needed an extra helping hand. Andrea is completely dedicated to her work and she has always given her all to maximise the progress of the children she supports. Her relationships, with pupils and staff, are really strong and this underpins the excellent work she has done. Past pupils have often referred to the time they spent with her, even many years afterwards. She is recalled by them with the same fondness and respect that we, as a staff, feel for her. Well done Andrea, we are so proud of you! 

Reading Lab is our new one-to-three intervention for KS2 pupils to help address the learning gaps caused by Covid and absence from school.

Designed as a 10-week catch up programme, Reading Lab focuses on reading comprehension and vocabulary to help prepare older primary school children for the important transition to secondary school as well as boosting confidence and overall literacy skills.

Each group of three children receives a tailored 45-minute tuition session twice a week for ten weeks  (15 hours of tuition in total) from one of our highly trained expert tutors.

Trials last year showed very promising results with children on average closing their literacy gap by 10 months after the 10-week programme.

Please contact Julie Taylor for more information and costs: julie.taylor@theclc.org.uk

We are delighted to announce that we have been voted by the staff of the University of London to become their UK Charity of the Year, alongside their International Charity Partner Street Child. The University of London is a federal research university containing 18 member institutions, central academic bodies and research institutes with over 1,000 staff members.

The anonymous staff member who nominated The Children’s Literacy Charity reasoned: “I am a strong believer in education from an early age. If children miss out on the first elementary steps, it is very hard if not almost impossible for them to make up for it at some point later in life. Literacy is essential to lead a decent life and instrumental for all stages of education.”

The partnership will run for three years until 2022, with University of London staff volunteering for the charity, as well as hosting a calendar of exciting events to help raise vital funds to support our provision of Literacy Labs in deprived areas, which help children like Abigail improve their literacy through our dedicated, one-to-one specialist tuition.

Michelle Bennett, Head of Fundraising at The Children’s Literacy Charity, said, “We are proud to have been chosen as the University of London’s UK Charity of the Year. 1 in 3 children from disadvantaged backgrounds leave primary school unable to read at the expected level.   Not being able to read and write holds you back at every stage of life with the University of London’s support, we will be able to improve the life chances of more children and close their reading age gap.”

For more information on how your organisation could help support our work please contact Michelle Bennett on michelle.bennett@theclc.org.uk.

“What do I have on my head?” Corinne lifts her hands and makes them into horn shapes. In the Literacy Lab, 7-year-old Karina, who speaks English as an Additional Language (EAL) and Portuguese at home, is practising the ‘or’ sound. In front of her is a set of words and pictures, all containing ‘or’. Some – like horns – she’s not sure of.  So her tutor Corinne steps in to help with actions and verbal clues.

Today, the pair have been joined by a special guest. Olivia is visiting from our corporate supporter Haggie Partners, a City-based financial communications firm. Like Karina, she also faced challenges with literacy growing up.

Olivia says, “I struggled a lot and received one-to-one tutoring on top of special classes at school. I believe they were the building blocks of where I am now. Working in PR, reading and writing is a big part of my life. The fact that these children are getting the help with their reading and writing so early is great.”

On the other side of the Literacy Lab, Yasir is holding a bright green fly swat. Like Karina, Yasir also speaks English as an Additional Language – his first language is Arabic. This session, he’s taking part in a word game to help practise high frequency words (like ‘with’, ‘for’, ‘too’ and ‘now’). Val reads out sentences containing the words, then he and Val race to swat them on the wall. They too have a special guest joining them – Jo from Haggie.

In recent weeks, Jo has been raising funds to support children like Yasir as part of Haggie’s challenge fundraising team. So far, they’ve staged their own static cyclic challenge, racing an impressive 100 miles ‘From Cornhill to Calais’ against their client, Capiscum Re. They’ve also taken part in the Tour de City cycling challenge as part of City Giving Day on September 26^th.  And Haggie Partner Damian Beeley has taken on a head-spinningly high challenge, abseiling down the side of the Cheesegrater.

“Fundraising as a team at Haggie has been fantastic,” says Jo. “It’s wonderful to visit the Literacy Lab and see the results of our support in action, and to meet a couple of the children who benefit from such a vital organisation. It’s clear how dedicated the tutors are to the children’s futures, and how much they want to help them realise how capable they are.”

As a charity, we are extremely grateful to Haggie for their support and enthusiasm. Through their fundraising, we’re able to reach more and more children with life-changing literacy support.

Can you help Haggie reach their target of raising £12,000 for The Children’s Literacy Charity?

 

The Children’s Literacy Charity is excited to announce a brand new partnership with West London Zone (WLZ). The WLZ initiative seeks to improve children’s lives in a deprived area of inner West London. Inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone model in New York City, the WLZ works closely with other organisations to provide opportunities for children in need.

This term, we’re launching new Literacy Labs at five schools in the area – Ark Swift, Ark Bentworth, Ark Brunel, Ark Conway and Bevington Primary School – providing places for children at risk of being left behind in their literacy learning. In our Literacy Labs, these children will receive individual expert support twice a week from our literacy tutors. These children will also be supported by link workers from WLZ, who will work alongside our literacy tutors to ensure children attend sessions and that their learning is extended.

Our CEO Matthew Hickey explains how the partnership came about. “The aspiration of our charity is to reach more children in more places. We feel that our priorities align closely with those of the WLZ and believe our intervention has the potential to make a huge impact for these children, especially as the link workers have existing relationships with the children and understand the needs they have.”

Jenny Hoyle, from WLZ, said, “We’re really looking forward to working with The Children’s Literacy Charity this year to help children in West London progress their literacy skills and build their confidence and enthusiasm for learning.”

We look forward to updating you with further details of our work in WLZ as term gets underway!

Find out more about our Literacy Labs.