1 in 4 children left primary school last year unable to read well. This means they are unable to fully access their secondary education and can therefore have a lifelong impact. Schoolreaders wants to change this. We now operate in every county in England, supporting over 27,000 children each week and we currently have schools across the North of England who are waiting for volunteers to join them.

Our volunteers must be able to commit to an hour each week for a full year and must undergo an Enhanced DBS check, although this would be done by the school they are matched with and so would have no cost implication to the volunteer. Volunteers must have a good standard of written and spoken English but we do not require any other skills and we do not have any age restrictions on our volunteers as long as they are over 18. Our youngest volunteer is 18 and the oldest is currently 92!

We have made strong connections with U3A groups in other regions so I wondered if you would be able to share some information about Schoolreaders with the Northumbria U3A community? If you provide me with a direct email address, I can send an e-flyer for you to use digitally on your website and/or social media platforms. If preferred, I can arrange to have some hard copies of our volunteering flyers or bookmarks delivered to you for distribution at local U3A meetings.

Please feel free to visit https://www.schoolreaders.org/ for more information about Schoolreaders and the work we do or click on the buttons below to see our leaflet. If you do have any further questions, please do get in touch. I am always happy to arrange a Teams meeting to discuss any queries.

Best wishes,

Susan Lawrie
Northern Schools and Volunteer Recruitment Coordinator
Schoolreaders
Registered Charity 1159157