It would be easy to be utterly overwhelmed by the challenges that schools face to try and meet the needs of our children. The landscape looks bleak – lack of funding, a delay on the SEND white paper and a huge and mounting deficit that would bankrupt most councils if it was called in.
Our teachers are exhausted – we ask too much – but they battle on. But with a rethink and a reset we can find our way back.
For the last five weeks we’ve been delivering afterschool family reading sessions in the new family hubs in Gloucester and The Forest of Dean. They’ve been attended by children aged 2 -14. For many English is a second language and a number have additional needs.
Quite quickly story telling has been taken over by the eldest children and as confidence has grown the younger children have joined in too.
Importantly parents have had the chance to see what their children are capable of achieving in a small mixed group and have been surprised and delighted by their progress. It’s led to more reading at home and all the children have been keen to come back each week.
On Wednesday I ran my last session at Lighthouse Children and Family Centre in Linden, with 11 children. As a group they read the Night Before Christmas and The Grinch. It was absolutely wonderful that the children all understood the message of the Grinch and talked enthusiastically about Christmas not being about presents but family, friends and kindness to strangers and those on their own. More priceless still was the clanging of pennies dropping and the children quickly backtracking on the need for presents and suggesting that they might not be a good thing.
Reading together is free – it’s about story telling, togetherness, firing imagination and curiosity – a time for sitting quietly and escaping from the pressures of the world. It does everyone good. Words, pictures – one or both – let’s find the time to read with our youngest and oldest children and give them the joy of learning to read – the gift that lasts a lifetime.
Wishing you all a very peaceful Christmas and New Year.
Linda
If you’re reading this and you or anyone you know doesn’t have books to read this Christmas, just email me at Linda@readwithme.org.uk with what you’d like.
