It’s such a busy time for Hope readers at the moment, that there’s barely time to stop and think about it!
But as it’s Friday, and it’s looking fairly wintery outside, what better time to sit and take a moment to take stock of the truly exciting things that have been happening over the past couple of weeks…
Beechwood Halloween Spooktacular
It was Halloween last week, and never ones to be left-out of the fun, Hope Readers made sure they werein involved in some fairly hair-raising activity on Friday. Charlotte, along with Annie Lord, a second-year English and Education Studies student who has been a long-term group member and is now volunteering with Hope Readers, attended the ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ Halloween Party at Beechwood Library on the Wirral. This special event was organised by TRO Project Worker and Reader-in-Residence at Beechwood, Anna Fleming, who spends every Friday at the library running a great variety of adult and young people’s groups to engage the local community.
This event was especially for the young readers and users of the library, and Anna was overwhelmed by the attendance to the event! There were over 30 little Halloween party-goers, in an assortment of creepy costumes, and the library staff assured us that it was the noisiest the place had been in quite some time!
Over the course of the afternoon we read ‘Where The Wild Things Are’, made paper crowns, painted faces, ate some rather scary-looking fruit creations, and generally had a wild rumpus!!
Here’s Annie, Anna and TRO Development Co-ordinator Chantel mustering the last scrap of their energy to pose for a photo at the end of the day…
School Cluster Meetings
Firstly, our meetings with Hope partner primary schools have been going extremely well, and we now have over 12 schools signed-up to take student Reading Ambassadors when their training is complete (read-on for more info).
Jane and Charlotte met with a very energetic bunch of six teachers from Lancashire and Wigan schools on Monday at Hope campus, with a meeting the following evening with a school in Whiston being taken by Jane. Then Charlotte travelled around Liverpool on Wednesday and Thursday to meet with five schools in Garston, one in Everton and three in West Derby. Phew!
The cluster meetings for the Autumn term are now over, and promotion about Reading Ambassadors has been sent-out to all Hope partner schools via email, so let’s hope we get a nice long list of schools requesting energetic and enthusiastic Hope students to be Ambassadors in their schools by Christmas!
Reading Ambassador training sessions
Student training for Reading Ambassadors is well and truly underway, with the first session with 5 undergraduate female students taking place last Tuesday, and another 2 happening on Wednesday and Friday this week with 3 students attending in total. That means that we have 8 students on their way to becoming Reading Ambassadors. On top of this, there are already another 2 sessions next week with 5 new students set to attend, on top of the second sessions for the 8 already enrolled.
To become a Reading Ambassador, you need to attend a total of three 2-hour training sessions. If you’d like to come along to one of the new sessions they are happening at the following times:
Tuesday 1.00-3.30pm
Wednesday 9.00-11.30am
Just contact Charlotte in advance to confirm your attendance: weberc@hope.ac.uk
CPD
As well as all of this activity, plans for teacher CPD at Hope provided by The reader Organisation are also well underway, with the first session, which will happen in the second week of December, to be announced at the end of next week. Watch this space!
Public Speaking
Not ones to shy-away from the limelight, Hope Readers have been doing their fair share of public (well, almost) appearances over the past week or so. On Wednesday last week, both Charlotte and Jane took part in training for over 60 sixth-formers from schools in Liverpool, all of whom are going to be reading buddies with younger children in their school. As part of the training, Charlotte performed a rather interesting (and loud) reading of Jon Klassen’s picture book masterpiece, and HR favourite, I Want My Hat Back. She has vowed never to do the ‘Spaghetti Western’ music in public EVER again…
In addition to this, Charlotte spoke to 15 students in their Education Studies seminar last Tuesday about TRO and becoming Reading Ambassadors. Five of these students have already been in touch about getting started, and two are attending training next week. Thanks to Dr John Grant for inviting me along! I’ll also be appearing in a Level C Education Studies lecture on Monday morning, and a Level H seminar on Tuesday. No rest for the wicked!
What a great, packed couple of weeks it has been. Now for a lovely weekend of feet-up, reading, and trying to stay dry!
