Why is our service needed?
Did you know?
"England has one of the lowest literacy rates in the developed world. 43% of British adults cannot read well enough to understand basic health information. Illiteracy on this scale has a serious impact on our society, reducing life expectancy in affected communities and the competitiveness of our economy."
In 2020, Exceed Reading Stars embarked on our journey to enhance the educational attainment development of children and young people who have a lower reading age than their actual age. To ensure we were meeting the needs of our beneficiaries, ERS undertook consultation sessions during the summer of 2020 with beneficiaries that included children, parents and carers and finally school teachers. 131 parents nationally participated in our online survey.
Feedback from the questionnaires identified the dire need to increase educational support services after school for children struggling to read and write.
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PRIMARY RESEARCH CONDUCTED
At the outset, our team conducted primary research on the dire local need around literacy in Lambeth, and found that out of 131 parents:
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78% Revealed their child reads books that are provided from both school and home.
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59% Said that work commitments present a barrier which prevents them from reading as much with their child
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26% Identified that another barrier preventing them from being able to read as much to their child, was they could not find any time.
After evaluating the feedback we received from our beneficiaries who engaged in our consultation, we created an environment wherein we could educationally support and provide opportunities to children and young people within the com- munity that usually do not have access to these privileges.
With high numbers of children aged 0-15 years old, working in this community centre provides children with a safe space that has educational support and youth-led engagement activities that they may not have received outside of school.
Our consulation session Acquiring our data served as further evidence of the community requiring a service tailored to its needs and this was reinforced by our Crowdfunding Target of £10,000 being reached within 48 days in 2020.
Parents within the area have expressed a need for more community and educational based services such as ours. One-fifth of Lambeth’s population is aged 20 or under which highlights the need for creating a safe space outside of school, where education is encouraged. By providing ERS youth-led programmes, we are confident that this will help deter young people away from crime and gang culture which is prominent within the community.
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We believe by working more cohesively alongside the internal and external organisations within various consortiums and surrounding areas, will need to continue by working together quarterly to explore and find out the needs and issues affecting our young people within our situated areas.
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In doing so we will be better equipped to monitor and provide more informed intervention programmes, tackle the rise of youth violence, and find other means to encourage, empower and enable young people to engage in the services available to support them in their development.
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Using the data we acquired, we identified that working with in collaboration with local schools and organisations such as Baytree, My Spiral and Brixton Soup Kitchen we could provide additional support in our community and create a more holistic learning experience and project the concerns of the voices of the community to where they will be heard.
We look forward to working alongside additional organisations to provide community forums as well as encouraging corporate social responsibility opportunities