Reading Programme Podcast

Jamie 0:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to the first ever regional strategy team podcast. This is Jamie community partnership manager, and I'm here with Jo Kerr from West Coventry Academy and Martin Price, who's also part of the regional strategy team. And we are going to talk to you about a Reading project. So Jo, can you tell us a bit more about why this project is important? Yeah

Jo 0:26

I've been working in schools in Tile Hill area for a number of years, and I've seen first hand the impact that not being able to read poor literacy can have across the whole community, both in adults and children, but working in schools, especially in children. So in schools, we have time to teach reading, especially in primary schools. In secondary schools, there's very little time to actually teach the art of reading, but there's very little time given over to pleasurable reading, enjoying reading, enjoying a book. We're so fixed on being on phones, especially young people, and I think they've lost the ability to enjoy reading. And if there isn't anybody to role model that, and there's no time in the curriculum for that, we need to build that in so that we can reinvigorate a love for reading, and, in turn, improve literacy and just the ability to be able to read and write well.

Jamie 1:22

Thank you, Jo. So Martin, this isn't the first time that you've thought about a Reading project and, in fact, done one. So tell us about the work you've done so far.

Martin 1:32

Yeah, we've worked with with student volunteers for the past two years, and we've worked with with Jo and delivered some of those things in the community, and we're still hoping to continue to work with the students. It's they've been fantastic, and they've really delivered some some really fun and exciting and impactful sessions. But the program we developed wasn't about trying to teach children to read. You need a qualified teacher for that, really. But we tried to focus on fostering enjoyment in reading. So the idea really is to to give young people who might not have opportunities to read and read for pleasure a chance to see themselves as somebody who who can enjoy reading a book and then enjoy talking about a book and just generally have fun doing things in relation to a book. Brilliant.

Jamie 2:18

Sounds fantastic. So Jo, how valuable was the experience of the previous reading projects?

Jo 2:26

The previous reading projects were absolutely awesome to see children fostering a love of reading when it's perhaps something that doesn't come naturally to them. I think as a parent, I've always enjoyed reading with my children at night, time before they go to bed. They used to barter on how many stories they'd have. But that isn't the case in all households. And how can we get children to enjoy books if they're not growing up in a background where there are books in the house where they're being read to? I used to enjoy doing the voices for my children, and if you don't have an adult in your life who's going to do that with you, then life can be pretty boring, really. So to have adults, we had student volunteers who were brilliant to bring books to life for them and to encourage their reading, encourage their understanding, and really get them into the story has been invaluable. And then to end all that with a celebration day, they've really felt something special going on, and certainly the feedback we've had after the project is that these children who haven't enjoyed books before and haven't enjoyed reading actually now we're not changing the world, but certainly we're changing viewpoints, and some of those children just to change one child into somebody who then can read Books, share books, and feels confident doing that. It's invaluable.

Jamie 3:43

Brilliant, Jo, I love your passion. So Martin, why the new focus on staff volunteers?

Martin 3:50

So we've, we've said that student volunteers have been, have been brilliant, and we do want to keep, keep working with students and the energy that they can bring. But we also know we've got a huge number of staff at the university, and we know that from feedback that we've had from staff surveys, that lots of you are keen to make a difference to local people and find ways to get involved. And we know that a lot of staff already volunteer their time for all sorts of things, which is amazing. But what we're trying to do here is make a university led project that allows staff to be part of something, maybe something bigger, something as a group with other staff, and to do that in a way that really makes an impact on people who who live in our local communities and staff are often local to the area. They're around for longer students. Obviously, the majority of our students are here term times, and then they have have exams. So the periods that we can work with students can often be quite limited. So we're hoping that working with staff allows us to build longer term relationships, and also some of our staff might have a little more a more experience. So working with schools can be complicated. School staff are under a lot of pressure, so working to make arrangements, we think, we hope that with some support staff can can do some of that. Many of us are also parents, so we're quite used to talking to schools. And also we think potentially in the long term, this gives a chance to scale it up further, to get more people involved for longer periods. And another big thing for me is that we think we really want the barrier, the walls between the university and the outside communities outside the university to we want those walls to come down. We want to break those barriers down a bit. And we really hope that having more of our university staff involved on behalf of the university and projects like this can help to to bring down some of those barriers. Fantastic.

Jamie 5:44

So Jo, I'm going to come to you first on this one. Hopefully people are now interested. But what will volunteering involve?

Jo 5:53

So in terms of commitment, what we're looking for is people who can come into a school once a week and do some reading activities with a group, probably of like, eight to 10 children. Everything will be provided for you so you haven't got a source the book or anything like that. We'll put some resources in. We will introduce you to key members of staff, and we do like a little bit of training, but it's quite low key, because we're not we're not looking to teach you things you already know. We just want to kind of really get you involved in what the spirit of the program is. And I am going to go off at a tangent here, which I think you would probably expect from me, but in terms of your commitment, that's what we're asking from you. But what you can get from it is just fantastic. I was privileged enough yesterday to take a group of children from tile Hill who hadn't been to London before to London. We went on a walking tour. We saw the sights of London. We went to a show. And for me, I've been to London a lot of times, but every time you see it through a child's eyes, for the first time, it like brings a tear to your eye. It's so important for these children to leave these experiences that aren't necessarily available to them, and it's the same for reading. When you read a book now as an adult, and I, my children are grown up, but when you see them reading, the magic's not there. It's a little bit when, like, when Christmas comes and you're like, 15 years old and you don't get the butterflies in your tummy anymore, but when you read a book with a child who hasn't had that experience of having it shared with them, it's really magical. So yes, we're asking for this time from you, but what you get back from it, I would imagine, is going to be tenfold the amount of time that you're putting in.

Martin 7:36

But yeah, really, a really important tangent, I think bring, the idea to life. And I think the reason we're doing this as a staff volunteer project for the first time, so we're starting small. We're looking for, ideally, probably 10 to 12 members of staff the first time round. And those, those lucky people, will be becoming on a journey with us. And so that will be kind of part of the spirit of the thing. We don't know exactly how this is going to work as a staff volunteering program yet, but we're going to find out as we go along. And we have got some plans, we're not going to make all of it up. So what you'll need is you'll need to have the kind of permission and of your line manager, so somebody who can confirm that you're able to get to the school in the school day, and you'll need to be able to get there. We've set this up really deliberately in a way that's not us going to read in kind of the schools that our kids go to. And that might not always be the case, but I know my my children go to a school where there are lots of parent volunteers and lots of opportunities to get involved in things like this, and we're trying to really deliberately work in schools where, where perhaps that isn't the case. And we know from from lots of evidence that that sustained engagement is what makes the real difference for young people. It's not just just coming once and disappearing again, but it's building those relationships and getting that kind of ongoing sense of being involved in something. So we really want people who can do we've talked about seven hours of volunteering, so that'll be seven sessions in school, and the idea will be six before our celebration event, and then one kind of wrap up and Evaluation Session after, where they can reflect on what they've done. We can work with schools around flexibility on that, we've tended to timetable it quite strictly with student volunteers. But we don't necessarily have to do that depending how much flexibility you've got in your your job. So that's what we're looking for, and we're aiming to start that probably January, February time, with a view to leading up to to an event.

Jamie 9:40

Wow, sounds fantastic. So last year I had the opportunity to turn up at the celebration event, which was great to see. But Jo, I wondered if you could tell us a bit more about that event.

Jo 9:53

Yeah, it, I think it brought it all together, really, and it brought all those emotions in. To the room of all those kids that had had the opportunity to read with adults and enjoy books. We had the authors of the book there that we'd read, and the workshops that they provided just gave those children even more insight to what the book that they'd read. But also what was really interesting is those children felt empowered to be able to have conversations back because they'd understood the book, they'd enjoyed the book, they'd laughed at the book, and to be able to speak to the authors that read it in an informed way. The confidence in those children was just amazing. So they come along, meet the author, do lots of activities, and just have a real fun day that kind of loosely revolves around the books. They get to see other children. They get to meet other children and talk about what they've read. And it's just fun. Like, when did we stop having fun with children? It's amazing. It just summed everything up. It brought all of the parts together of the Reading project. All of those individuals who had given their hours to go and work in these schools brought it all together, and the sum total was greater than that. Of the parts, it was just amazing. And we're going to be doing that again on campus this year. So we've got the 13th of May. Heavy pencilled in. Yeah. Heavy pet booked, booked. There we are booked. I've spoken to the authors, they're involved. There might be mention of slime. It'll be fine. Don't wear your work suit. And I just think it's going to be absolutely amazing. And if you are able to come on that day, you would be more than welcome. It's almost like a coming together. The children get so excited seeing their volunteer, their person that came and read with them in the flesh again, but in a different environment. So ordinarily, you're going into their school, and then they come to Warwick University, and oh yeah, there you are. I know you we read this book together. And yeah, that kind of shared experience is really, really important for them. That wasn't very factual, was it okay?

Jamie 11:59

Thanks. Okay, so you mentioned the event on the 13th of May. So Martin, is there an expectation that staff volunteers would need to be free for the whole of that day?

Martin 12:08

So no, we, as Jo says, We'd really love for staff to be there, even if it's just for part of the day. Very welcome to come for the whole day. But we understand that whole days out of diaries can be quite difficult. We're happy to encourage line managers to support you to do that if we can. But we know it won't be possible for everyone, but we do think it's going to be, it's going to be a lot of fun and really rewarding to be part of. So it would be great if people who volunteer we're able to do that.

Jamie 12:37

Well, I am sold. So how can I sign up for this amazing project?

Martin 12:44

So hopefully with us, you've accessed this podcast from an email or a form or a web page, there should be a link there to fill in a form to express an interest. So if you do that, then we'll be in touch really, really soon. We're really keen to get moving on this. Also, you should find my email address on that page if you want to get in touch and talk about anything in more detail then. Then please do. I'm also - My name is Martin Price, and I'm in the staff directory if you want to find me by email on there as well. So please do feel free to get in touch if you've got any questions, concerns, things that might maybe hold you back that we could deal with. We'd love to hear from you.

Jamie 13:24

Thank you all so much for listening. Hopefully we managed to complete this podcast in your commute home, and yeah, we'll look forward to you signing up and meeting in person very soon. Thank you.