National Year of Reading - Chapter One

For the National Year of Reading, we are sharing a series of short conversations with people who are involved in promoting reading with young people. This could be a programme, resources or a literary event, and we're giving them the opportunity to share what they do and how people can get involved.

In this episode we are joined by Emma Bell, CEO of Chapter One.

Through their volunteer reading partners, Chapter One provide one-to-one reading support to nearly 3,500 children in Birmingham, Bradford, Doncaster, East Sussex, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Leeds, Peterborough, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Warrington and West Cumbria.

Transcript

Ali 0:11

Hi, I'm Ali.

Katy 0:12

Hi, I'm Katie and welcome to Mostly Book Talk.

Ali 0:15

This is another episode in our series of short introductions to different charities and what they're doing for the National Year of Reading.

Katy 0:23

And in this episode, we're pleased to welcome Emma Bell, who's the CEO of Chapter One.

Katy 0:33

So we are really pleased to have with us today Emma Bell, who is the CEO of Chapter One, and she is going to talk about what Chapter One do and what they're doing in the National Year of Reading. So welcome Emma.

Emma 0:45

Hello.

Katy 0:46

Hello. Hi Emma. Do you want to just start off by telling us a bit about Chapter One?

Speaker 0:52

Absolutely. It's a real pleasure to be with you both. I've enjoyed listening to your episode so far. So Chapter One is a literacy charity that was set up with a vision that all children, regardless of their background, should have the literacy skills they need to thrive. And our part that we play in that, so the mission that we have really is to provide children with one-to-one reading support at the time they need it most. And how does that happen? How do you work? So we have three programs, Ali, that really, I suppose, follow children through their primary reading journey that we've developed in response to quite a lot of feedback and our partnerships with schools. The flagship program, the one I think that we're best known for, and it's been around for the longest, is one that mobilizes at this point about 3,000, 3,500 volunteers each year from the corporate sector to provide 30-minute reading sessions with children who are struggling with reading each week. That's children in Key Stage One. They tend to be mostly in years one and two, but occasionally we have children in year three as well who join the programme. And the idea is that those volunteers are there to help children feel that someone cares about their reading, that they have dedicated time with an adult who is committed to listening, to encouraging, to supporting, to developing their passion for stories, to listening to them read out loud, gently supporting them if there's something that they stumble with. And the wonderful thing is that alongside the reading skill and confidence that children develop, they also develop a really strong relationship with this adult who's effectively mentoring them through their reading journey. So that's our main programme. And then we also have two other programs, one which focuses on supporting children who might be falling behind whole-class phonics. So we train a set of specialists who go into schools and use a technology platform to provide short, sharp sessions to help children catch up, regardless of what phonics scheme their school is using. And then last but not least, our newest programme is one that is focused on older, reluctant readers. So children who know how to read but are not choosing to do. And we've developed a book club model which is all about the social experience of reading, helping children build their reader identity with an expert facilitator who takes them on a sort of wonderful journey of discovery with a curated book box. So yeah, those are our three programs.

Ali 3:14

And are they in person or online or how does it work?

Emma 3:18

It's a great question. So the unique thing I think about our volunteer reading programme is it's delivered completely online. We're a great believer as a charity in harnessing technology and using it really to facilitate the power of human connection. So our volunteers can be anywhere in the country. Our children are in communities, 13 different areas of the country and communities facing disadvantage. And the wonderful thing about the model is it does allow businesses who have a particular yen to support a community that they might not be physically located in, to do just that. So you might be in an office in Canary Wharf in London, and you decide you want to really hone in on giving support to a social mobility cold spot. And the online nature of our model makes that possible. The other two programs, the uh what we call the early literacy intervention, the phonics program and the book clubs, they are in person, so our trained specialists go into schools.

Katy 4:15

Okay, I was wondering how the phonics would work online. That sounded quite quite a bit more difficult. Yeah. So with your flagship programme, is that the phonics, their reading scheme books that they read out loud to them, or do they share storybooks? They share storybooks. Okay.

Emma 4:31

One of the sort of interesting things about the technology platform that we use to run these online sessions is that it's really a one-stop shop. We make it really streamlined and straightforward for the volunteers that have got to remember one username, one password. And once they've logged into the web-based platform, they can use it to both book in a session, there's a shared timetable with the classroom that's participating, to actually make the call themselves. You have to imagine that the volunteer is at one end of the platform, the classroom is at the other. The platform generates a telephone number for the volunteer to ring at the time a reading session is happening. So the volunteer then uses that telephone number, you know, mobile or landline, dials it, and the classroom laptop that they're matched with rings like it's a telephone. So that's how the classroom knows that a call's incoming and a reading session is about to start. So that's all done within the platform. The volunteers can keep notes, they also are able to communicate safely with the teacher to give updates on children's progress. And then, all importantly, there's a library of lovely sort of level texts, which a lot of which we've commissioned, especially so 200 or so stories to give children just a real range of things that they can decide to read with their volunteer. But they do progress in difficulty so that children can start at a lower level and then move up the levels as their reading skills improve over the years.

Katy 5:55

And so do they volunteer and the child choose the book together or is it kind of?

Emma 5:59

Yeah, choice is really much for us is a really important part of what we do. There's a little panel of stories, and there's often back and forth discussion about which one they want to read today. I actually read myself with a reader. We've got about 50% of our chapter one staff also volunteer, which is a lovely way to get an insight into the programme. Um and we have very animated discussions about which book we're going to choose and why we're going to choose it. And did we read that last time and are we going to do it again? So there's a lot of that. And I think we encourage our volunteers, obviously, to where they can challenge children to read something that they haven't read before, but also to understand that all-important thing about the comfort of repetition. So if actually they do want to just read the same story each time. My my little reader has a favourite story about a pet rabbit, and she wants to come back to it at the end of every single session because I think for her it represents, you know, something comforting. And also at the beginning, she could hardly read it at all, and now she flies through it. So I think that sense of achievement, and that the online platform makes it extremely easy to move between texts and levels. So that's all quite straightforward.

Katy 7:06

Nice. And you said you work in 13 areas. Which areas are they? Are they across the country?

Emma 7:11

Yes, they range all over the country actually, and we also work in Glasgow and Edinburgh as well in Scotland. In England, we are in Manchester, East Sussex, Doncaster, Middlesbrough, London, Peter as well.

Katy 7:24

It's not a test, don't worry. We're going to list them all off. We started, that's brilliant. It's just a sense that they're spread about. You're not just in, yeah. Okay, lovely.

Ali 7:39

And for the National Year of Reading, which we find ourselves situated in, is there anything special that chapter one is doing?

Emma 7:45

Yeah, I think we decided to try and do two things in the National Year of Reading. The first was to really challenge the business community that we have these very close relationships with to step up and meet the moment. So we've got 180 different corporate partners that we work with, a number of them, platinum-level, our very top tier of partners, are at this point providing between 100 and 200 volunteers from their businesses to chapter one. So they're already doing something amazing and significant, but we've been trying to encourage people to capitalise on this year and help build towards the quite significant volunteering targets that the National Year of Reading has. So we're saying at the very least, we want to recruit an extra thousand volunteers this year, 30% of what we have over again in the National Year of Reading. And the other thing that we've done is that we've used the Year of Reading to really think about a campaign that's been close to our hearts for a while, but to launch it this year, which is to make a commitment to our community of children, volunteers and businesses that by 2030 we will have read a million stories together. We were founded in this country in 2018-19, that academic year. We've already read nearly 450,000. We want to get to a million by 2030. So that's something that's really resonated actually with the corporate business volunteers. I think they love the idea that they're going to participate in something that feels really enjoyable and meaningful.

Katy 9:10

They like the numbers. Yes. They like something they can measure. So presumably, in terms of getting involved, you're looking for volunteers. Yeah. And you do that through corporate partners.

Emma 9:20

We d o actually. So that's where we're perhaps a little bit different to some of the other literacy organizations who also rely on volunteers. A number of them obviously have in-person programmes which are brilliant, and they tend to recruit from members of the public. And we don't. So we are getting all of our volunteers through the business sector. Partly, I think, because we recognise that there's just a lot of adults who would love to do something direct with a child, but going to work every day mitigates against it a bit, and they just don't have the flexibility to be able to go and do an in-person reading scheme and miss a morning in the office. So this is a short, sharp half for now and very flexible and time efficient. We've decided to go down the route of working with corporate volunteers, and of course, that provides us with a funding source as well. We're very upfront about the fact that high-quality volunteering costs money. So we expect our partners to give us a financial contribution alongside the time of their volunteers. Um, you know, that's not for every business, but for those who are committed to working with young people, they often understand that these things don't come for free.

Katy 10:24

Is it just really big corporates or what's like the smallest number of volunteers?

Emma 10:29

Yeah , it's a good question, Katy. I think you need to, we have a team of 10 is our minimum commitment. We do have some companies where there are only 50 people and 20% of them are being volunteers. But I would have thought that most of our smallest partners start off in the range of being about 100 employees strong. And then obviously we go up to ones that have got tens of thousands. But it's we're really keen and open to talk to anyone who thinks this is something that might work for their staff.

Ali 10:58

And how do people do that? How do people get into it?

Emma 11:00

Yeah, so they they you can find the details on our website of how to be in touch. We have a sort of special team, two wonderful people, Karen and Sarah, who were there just to have a conversation with any business who is keen to know more. So, yeah, it's chapter1.org and Karen Price and Sarah Taylor, and you can find them on LinkedIn obviously as well.

Katy 11:19

Lovely. And if you're a school, how do you choose the schools or do the schools choose you?

Emma 11:24

No, a bit of both, inevitably. We do only work with schools who are have a higher than national average of children in receipt of pupil premium, and they have to be in an area that we're already working in because we have dedicated local staff who do quite a bit to make sure the programme works smoothly on the ground. So again, on our website, a lovely map of showing where we are in the country. If you're a school in any one of those areas and having this kind of extra pair of hands in the classroom appeals, then you know, do please get in touch. We've got our school's development manager who's called Catherine Taylor, and she'd be happy to talk about any of our programs. So whether it's the online reading program or the early literacy intervention, phonics support, or indeed the book clubs. She's keen to discuss that with anyone, any school that might be interested.

Katy 12:13

Okay, so check out your website if they've if the school's interested. Brilliant. And finally, what are your hopes for the national year of reading? What do you hope it will achieve?

Emma 12:22

It would be amazing if it managed to achieve what it set out to do, which is change the nation's reading culture. I think any of us who know anything about this feel that doing that in a year is a little ambitious. I think the National Year of Reading team would obviously say that themselves as well. Moving some way towards reducing that decline in reading for pleasure. But for me, one of the most exciting things about the National Year of Reading is that it's given us away and a sort of, I don't know, a special boost to the idea of connection and collaboration between literacy organisations and charities. So lots of us apart, as you guys both are as well, of an organization called the Literacy Link, a network that we've developed. And that's been partly supported by the National Europe of Reading, and it will be something that lives far beyond it, I really hope, and enables us all to just be more powerful and effective together than we were when we're just on our own. It's early days, there's lots of things that have to be worked through and understood. But I think there's such an energy and enthusiasm for it amongst so many organizations that we really hope that's going to be a lasting legacy of the year.

Katy 13:31

Brilliant. Thank you.