138 Kingsland High Street Dalston London United Kingdom E82NS
0203 327 1777
Do you believe that learning is an adventure? Join our crew as a Literacy Support Volunteer!
Volunteers are central to our project, and we are looking for people of all ages and backgrounds who are interested in supporting local young people.
What You Will Be Doing:
• Attending sessions with young people at our Hackney Pirates centre between 3.45pm and 6.45pm on weekdays.
• Reading with individual children or in small groups.
• Supporting children in completing writing projects to contribute to poetry and story books, studio recordings and films.
• Offering young people the encouragement and support that will help them to focus, feel motivated and persevere with their work.
• Joining in with games and group activities.
No previous experience is required. We provide training on how to facilitate reading and writing sessions that foster enjoyment and confidence in young people.
Skills Required:
• Able to independently support Young Pirates in their learning
• A patient and respectful approach to children and adults
• Functional English skills
• Good communication skills. The ability to follow, retain and then relay instructions
• Reliable and punctual
• Self-reflective, seeking ways to improve individual practise
• Able to implement our learning strategies and behaviour management techniques
*If you feel you would benefit from some additional support to fulfil these requirements, please contact us to discuss.
Time commitment:
Our sessions run on weekdays from 3.45pm to 6.45pm. You must be available for the entire session.
We ask Volunteer Crewmates to commit to completing a minimum of 12 sessions, at a rate of at least one session a month.
You will also need to complete our volunteer training programme before starting your first session, this involves a 90 minute volunteer taster session and a 3 hour training session.
To find out more and to sign up please visit:
http://www.hackneypirates.org/volunteer
The Hackney Pirates is an enterprising charity working to develop the literacy, confidence and perseverance of young people in Hackney, so that they achieve both in school and in the world beyond. Working in partnership with local schools, we support young people aged 9-13 whose teachers think would benefit from some extra support. The Young Pirates come to our Ship of Adventures once a week after school where they receive one-to-one reading support and work on our unique creative writing projects. Over the course of a year Young Pirates see their writing professionally published in poetry and story books, studio recordings and film projects.
On average, Young Pirates improve their reading age over 50% faster than age related expectations. In other words, in the space of 9 months we see Young Pirates making an average of 14 month progress in reading ages.