Summer Active

Booktrust has been awarded funding by the Education Endowment Foundation to deliver a new reading project.

The Summer Active project aims to promote children's enjoyment of books and encourage them to see reading as a pleasurable activity rather than a chore. Booktrust will be running a three-tiered pilot project in Bradford, Hull and Leeds to help support children moving from primary to secondary school that have not reached their expected reading level in English.

The move from primary to secondary school is particularly important in the development of reading skills. The project will encourage reading for pleasure and help bring the experience, enjoyment and confidence of reading to all. It will take place following completion of Key Stage 2 (Year 6) from June to September 2013.

Overview of the project

The project will encourage reading for pleasure by providing reading materials and volunteer support to children over the summer. We aim to work with 15 secondary schools, approximately five in each of Bradford, Hull and Leeds. The secondary schools will be asked to indicate their feeder primary schools and help Booktrust approach them to identify the children that will take part. Eligible children will be identified through teacher assessment as predicted not to reach level 4 in English in their end of Key Stage 2 SATS.

There will be three groups with three different approaches to the project, each supporting 300 children. The project will be a Randomised Control Trial, placing children into one of the three groups at random. The outcome of the different approaches will be robustly evaluated to assess their impact. The evaluation will be undertaken by Sheffield Hallam University and Queen's University Belfast.

Volunteer opportunity

Booktrust are looking for volunteers to help with this exciting new project. If you can help out for around five days over the summer, we would love to hear from you.

What is involved?

You will be helping children moving from primary to secondary school to become more confident in their reading. You will gift books to the children and help out with their reading skills in small groups and on a one-to-one basis at fun events over the summer holidays. It will take place in a selection of schools across Bradford, Hull and Leeds.

Who can volunteer?

Anyone who has a passion for reading, good literacy skills and able to engage well with 11-year-old children. You will need to be able to help out at the fun activity days and visit children in their schools.

What is expected of me?

You will need to be free for some training in May, then one day in June, July, August and September. The dates will be confirmed at the start of the programme.

What next?

Download the volunteer job description

Download the volunteer application form

Contact simon.richards@booktrust.org.uk for further information about this volunteering opportunity.

If you wish to apply to be a volunteer, please download and complete an application form and return by email to recruitment@booktrust.org.uk by 6 June 2013.