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>View discussions about this entry Country: United Kingdom
Organization: National Literacy Trust
Sport: Soccer
Year the initative began (yyyy) 2002
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Project URL: http://www.readingthegame.org.uk
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? Reading The Game (RTG) works with professional football to engage disaffected children in reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? Through the motivational power of sport we are able to target and engage those with low literacy levels who are hard to reach through more conventional channels.
RTG is unique in its partnerships with professional football organisations including the Football Foundation, the Premier League and the Professional Footballers' Association. The support of the the major footballing bodies gives us access to expertise, frameworks for delivery and encourages the support of affiliated clubs and players. What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? In the UK, 20% of 11-year-olds fail to reach basic standards in reading and writing. In the most deprived communities, this figure rises to 60%. Boys continue to underachieve in national test results. In 2006, 79% of boys at key stage 2 achieved the standard expected for their age in reading compared with 87% of girls. In writing, the proportion drops to 59% for boys and 75% for girls.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? The appeal of sport puts RTG in the unique position of being able to tackle educational inequalities between the sexes and social groups. RTG runs several programmes that target all aspects of literacy: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Our three main programmes involve:
- Creating family reading groups which partner with their local Premier League Club. Players nominate favourite reads, families receive free books, and the clubs provide incentives ranging from player visits to free tickets. - Training members of football clubs (including first-team players, academy players and coaches) in professional storytelling techniques so they are able to lead storytelling sessions with local children in libraries. They also host a family day at the club for the children. - Linking football league clubs to local schools for whom they provide incentives such as match tickets for pupils to take part in reading challenges and achieve reading goals. Our network of links with clubs, schools and libraries, established over several years, enables our delivery of these projects. How do you plan to grow your innovation? RTG has worked successfully with football for a number of years, but we are now expanding to include other sports such as cricket, athletics and rugby in order to appeal to a wider cross section of young people. We are currently establishing partnerships with other sporting bodies and planning pilot projects for next year.
We are also introducing a new programme which will focus on writing, something which is not a major part of our existing projects. This project brings fans together to write stories about their club to be published in an exclusive book for each club. A successful pilot of this project recently culminated in the publication of "Brentford 'til I die". We are expanding our target audience to reach potential adult learners, including prisoners and the unemployed, as well as children. One in five adults struggles to read and write, so this is an essential area of need. Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. We will engage and motivate young people in reading, writing, speaking and listening: improving their skills, attitudes and behaviour, and increasing their participation and enjoyment.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? Impact
We have achieved the following impact on individuals: - increased independence and self-confidence For organisations we have increased their commitment to tackling literacy issues, and enabled collaboration and partnership working. Beneficaries - Children age 8 – 13 - Potential adult learners - Families
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? The growing commitment of our partner organisations, and the continued establishment of new projects in new locations shows the demand for the results we achieve.
A recent evaluation showed that: • 94% of participants would go to the library more "I really enjoyed the scheme and have told all my friends about it. I would recommend it to everybody." Lewis, age 8 What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? The main barrier is the difficulty in raising enough funds to reach all of those who need our help.
There are also difficulties in reaching adult learners due to the limited frameworks for access and delivery, that the formal education system for children provides. How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? Reading The Game is currently largely funded by the Football Foundation, the Premier League and Arts Council England. Other generous supporters include the Professional Footballers' Association, the DCSF and Renaissance Learning.
We are currently seeking to raise funds from a variety of other sources. If known, provide information on your finances and organization. Annual budget 2007/2008: approx £1.6m
Annual revenue 2006/2007: approx £1.3m 21 full time staff What is the potential demand for your innovation? We currently work with all 20 Premier League clubs and 32 Football League clubs.
We could work with the remaining 40 football clubs. We will also work with 4 rugby clubs, 4 cricket clubs and 4 athletics clubs. Over the next three years we aim to reach over 60,000 people directly with our projects. We would also like to reach every school in England (24,000), and every library in England (3,000) with our related resources (posters, DVDs, activities). What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? Covering core costs of a charitable organisation, such as finance, HR, IT and accommodation. This is very difficult because many funders only wish to cover direct project costs, such as the price of books. We also need to cover the costs behind the scenes that go into buying those books, setting up projects and making sure they are effective.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. RTG was founded by Jim Sells, current Manager of RTG, and Neil McClelland, former Director of the National Literacy Trust. It grew out of the success of another NLT project that reaches children with free books through a variety of community locations, including schools, libraries, women's refuges and football clubs. The latter proved extremely popular with the children, and received excellent feedback from teachers and parents. RTG was then set up to explore new and innovative ways of working with football clubs to inspire and motivate young people.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. I studied English literature at university and came to the NLT as a fundraiser almost two years ago, following six months voluntary work overseas and three years working in charity accounting. My job is to raise money for Reading The Game and other NLT projects.
Contact Information:
Rachel Horton
Fundraising Manager National Literacy Trust (Charity) Discussions about this entry |
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Reading The Game
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Kevin Carroll
Changemakers Featured Commentator
Sport for a Better World Competition
You’ve set a great foundation with other organizations and I love the idea of combining literacy and sports. I like tapping into the idea of libraries as destinations of choice for children and families. As we know from the many studies out there, the ability to read is very connected to other successes in life.
One idea for outreach that would potentially address both funding and recruitment goals is to have a nationwide “Reading the Game Day”, with events at libraries and schools all focused on the same book that participants will have read by that day. Professional football players could be part of these events, giving readings from the book and talking about the importance of reading. Check out the U.S.’s Get Caught Reading Campaign at www.getcaughtreading.org for ideas and inspiration. Like Get Caught Reading, you could capture snapshots of famous athletes and celebrities all reading your chosen Reading the Game book.
Hi Rachel,
Ok, this is great. As a booky person who´s quite new to sports this naturally appeals to me. Who would have thought that sports can be so much fun? It´s actually possible to be in a sports project and read at the same time. No, seriously - I love it. However, do you do anything that works the other way round, i.e. gets kids more involved in actual sports? Like, writing about your favorite sport, going to (and participating in) a sports event and then write about, do fun adventure things that can be found in books (climbing, hiking, sailing...any adventure books on football out there?). I think there are lots of possibilities how this can go both ways.
Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Hi Jasper
That is certainly a bit of a 'by-product' of the work that we do, healthy living, particularly in terms of diet and exercise, is such an important part of our well-being. We dont try to capture this as we can't be all things to all people, but we do complement the work of a lot of our partners who have specific interest this way round. I suggets you try the Football Foundation to find out more.http://www.footballfoundation.org.uk.
All the best
Jim