The Literacy Pirates
When adults who don’t work with young people meet secondary school teachers or even more frequently, sixth form teachers, one of the first things that they say tends to be along the lines of “god you must have your work cut out for you” or “you must have the patience of a saint”. As someone who has only ever worked with that age group, I have always looked at primary school teachers and thought the exact same thing. To me, the idea of being with the one group of young children all day, all week for every day of the school year is exhausting just to think about. At least with secondary school pupils, if they drive you mad after an hour or two, you get to say goodbye to them until your next lesson with them, sometimes providing some much needed respite for both teacher and student. But in an interesting plot twist for me, recently I have really stepped out of my comfort zone and worked in the area of education that I never thought I would manage and six weeks ago a new addition to my weekly routine came in the form of volunteering with primary school children to assist them with their literacy at an amazing non profit organisation called the Literacy Pirates.
The company was founded in 2010 by Catriona Maclay, a teacher in North London who realised that some of the pupils that she was teaching needed more support than she and her colleagues were able to offer during the school day. Living locally, she knew that Hackney was filled with wonderful people who would be able to help her on her mission so in 2010 she ran a pilot project to see if it was feasible. The programme focused on reading and writing, while also working to increase children’s self esteem as learners and their ability to keep persisting when things got difficult with their school work. The pilot programme was a great success and before long The Hackney Pirates was born. Four years later they moved into their dedicated learning centre, a fantastic pirate themed space (or ship as it is known), in Dalston and five years later, they launched their second Ship in Haringey, The Tottenham Pirates. Since the Covid pandemic they have moved their provision online and have successfully continued to support children in need since then.
The vision of the Literacy Pirates is one that sees all children being able to reach their potential in life and they work towards this through developing the literacy, confidence and perseverance of children who are falling behind in class, whose literacy skills are behind national averages and who have fewer opportunities in their personal lives, so that they can achieve both at school and beyond. Children aged 9-12 years old who have been referred by their school attend a weekly two hour session where they are taught by qualified teachers, joined by a community of volunteers who support reading practice as well as helping the children to write stories that are published in exciting real-life publications like books, films and apps. This year the young people are creating a film that will be screened at Hackney’s Rio Cinema this summer. On average, children enrolled in the Literacy Pirates programme make 16 months progress in their reading age in less than one academic year which in turn gives them a crucial boost in skills and confidence so they can better succeed at school. All in all it is a wonderful organisation making incredible impact and I can now officially report that despite any preconceived notions of myself as unable to work with young kids I was actually wrong. I have been loving it and it is quickly becoming one of my favourite times of the week. Will I be changing careers and moving to primary education? Doubtful. But for the time being, this three hours a week of something new and different is bringing me a lot of joy. I even got a lovely piece of feedback from my last session as it turns out that one of the trickiest of the young people from my volunteering day who had a last minute swap to work with me wrote the most that he has for a long time - maybe I’m better at this than I thought!
The Literacy Pirates is always on the lookout for new volunteers and you don’t need to be a teacher or have worked with young people to apply, you just need to want to help them to succeed. You can learn more about volunteering and the company at www.literacypirates.org/volunteer