Suite E Gobles Court 7 Market Square Bicester Oxon OX26 6AA Tel: 01869 320380 Email: info@archoxfordshire.org.uk www.archoxfordshire.org.uk

NEWSLETTER Issue 33 January 2019

Happy New Year to all! We hope you are all looking forward to all that 2019 has in store.

We now have a bigger staff team, having recently welcomed 2 new staff members

Elena McCretton as Field Worker for Henley, Wallingford and Didcot areas. Elena has spent most of her life living and working overseas, managing projects on behalf of donors in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Since

returning to the UK, Elena has trained as a General Adviser for Citizens Advice and volunteers at her local library. She is looking forward to visiting all her volunteers and schools.

Heidi Moss who is an ARCh reading helpers has taken up the new post of Volunteer Recruitment Officer, based in our office. Heidi was in the British Army for 19 years where she was sent on

operations to Northern Ireland and Bosnia as well as serving in Germany for 6 years. Since leaving the service she has accompanied her husband, who is a serving soldier, on assignment to Sierra Leone and Jordan where she taught IT and volunteered with Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Heidi moved to Bicester in August and is looking forward to helping us recruit

more volunteers. We began this term much in demand from local media as a report from United for All Ages, “The Next Generation; how intergenerational

interaction improves life chances of children and young people”, was issued. The report highlighted Oxfordshire as leading the way on intergenera-tional activity; this is core to the work of ARCh of course. We were invited onto BBC Radio Oxford’s breakfast show to talk about our work and Jane chat-ted with host David Prever and Paul Cann from inter-generational charity Full Circle. BBC Oxford TV then came to Bicester to film volunteer Bob Dixon during his ARCh session in Southwold Primary and Elaine was interviewed. We know volunteers gain as much from their ARCh experience as the children so it was great to be able to highlight this via local media.

Dyslexia Workshop Back in September, Charlotte and Clare ran a workshop on dyslexia, attended by many volunteers. Feedback was extremely positive and we hope they will repeat the session later this year. Notes from the workshop are available from the office.

In October we were delighted to hear from local MP Layla Moran that she had tabled an Early Day Motion on ARCh in the House of Commons, congratulating us on our work (see below).

We met with both Layla and Anneliese Dodds, MP for Oxford East, last term to update them on our work. Our Christmas meeting was the best attended to date. We were honoured to have High Sheriff of Oxfordshire Richard Venables with us. He thanked volunteers for the amazing contribution they make in Oxfordshire. Richard presented long service awards to Anne Ross, celebrating 10 years with ARCh (having helped children in Fir Tree Juniors in Wallingford, Abbey Woods in Berinsfield and now in Witney Community Primary) and to Elaine Steane, marking an amazing 15 years’ volunteering, (initially in New Marston Primary and now in St Nicholas Primary in Marston). Elaine is also a keen rambler and author (please see piece on her latest book on page 4 of this newsletter). The Oxford Mail and Times covered the story and BBC Radio Oxford will be featuring it on their mid-

morning programme. Poet James Carter entertained us during the afternoon and lots of fun was had by all! He followed this up with a mammoth book signing session! And is now an ARCh patron!

Thanks go to Tesco Abingdon who gave us a contribution towards festive refreshments. And to the team of volunteers led by Jeremy who served everyone so efficiently.

At the meeting we shared the results of our Pupil Survey. Each summer we ask schools to evaluate our service, in conjunction with Research Oxford Ltd. Year on year we get fabulous results which shows what a wonderful job you are all doing.

Improvements noted in children 2017/18

Confidence in reading 99%

Attitude to reading 96%

Reading performance 95%

Self-confidence/self-esteem 95%

We received some lovely comments from schools:

“Fantastic support and has really boosted their confidence and reading ability.” “Volunteer has been a huge asset—she makes her sessions very personal to the child.” “Very valuable contribution to helping children gain confidence in reading and helping to make reading fun.” “A huge thank you to our volunteer. His calm and nurturing approach has worked miracles with this child. He is now confident and enjoys reading. He has a wonderful relationship with this child which is lovely to see. They are always laughing and smiling! Thank you.” “The reading helpers contribution is invaluable. We are so grateful to them. They make our children more confident to share their views and help them improve their attitude towards reading.” “Child really developed in confidence and enjoyed every session.”

GDPR - a reminder

Remember the importance of data protection. Please ensure that you do not identify individual children when chatting or discussing issues involved in your volunteering, especially important when in settings such as coffee mornings and social gatherings. Information Commissioner’s Office has a useful website: www.ico.org.uk for further guidance.

National Literacy Trust report

Children who read and write in their free time have better mental well-being A report from National Literacy Trust revealed the importance of literacy skills for good mental health. https://literacytrust.org.uk/news/children-who-enjoy-reading-and-writing-have-significantly-better-mental-wellbeing-their-peers/ NLT director Jonathan Douglas said “Not only does a love of reading and writing enable children to flourish at school, but we now also know it can play a vital role in supporting children to lead happy and healthy lives.” We know this applies to adults too so are appealing for more volunteers to sign up to ARCh!

Coming up…

We will have a stall at Bicester Volunteer Fair at Bicester Leisure Centre 9am - 11.30am on Friday 8th February – it would be great to see volunteers there to encourage others to apply!

We have also been invited to attend the final day of the

Oxfordshire Headteachers’ Conference taking place in

Stratford upon Avon on 1st March. This will be a good opportunity to meet headteachers and tell those who don’t already know all about ARCh.

We hope it will result in more schools signing up!

Our busiest volunteer meeting yet!

This term we have a display at Oxford’s Central Library in Westgate.

Some appeals As you will be aware, we strive to keep the

costs of ARCh to a minimum. With more than 260 volunteers to communicate with, printing and posting does cost. We do try to issue as much correspondence as possible via email. Please look out for our communications, postal or email and do respond when you receive them. We don’t want to have to chase people but do need to know you are receiving us!

If you can offer fellow volunteers a

lift to any of our meetings please let us know. It is good to have company and you may make a new friend!

Can you help us recruit more volunteers so

that we can reach more children please? Do you have a local shop, doctor’s surgery etc where an ARCh poster could be displayed? Is there an ARCh poster in your local leisure centre, garden centre, Wilko, Homebase, Waitrose, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsburys, Nisa? If not , please let us know!

Do you belong to a reading group, choir, U3A or any group whose members may be interested in volunteering? Again, do please let us know – we are always happy to send out posters or leaflets.

Our next volunteer training course takes place on 4

th and 5

th February

Do you know of a local business or other

organisation who may like to adopt ARCh as its charity of the year?

Last year we were adopted by Inner Wheel of Witney and Usborne Books Oxford.

We are always pleased to welcome visitors

to our office in Bicester. Our usual opening hours are 9.30am to 3.30pm however please do check by calling or emailing before coming to see us in case we have meetings etc.

Thank you to our funders Oxfordshire Community Foundation Oxfordshire County Councillor Priority Fund Waitrose stores in Abingdon, Banbury, Faringdon and Wantage. Bartholomew Educational Foundation Abingdon Lions Mulberry Trust Masons Jersey Chapter Banbury Town Council Great Milton Singers Inner Wheel Witney Holton and Waterperry Women’s Institute

Oxford University Press and The Siobhan Dowd Trust for their pledge of books, which we hope to receive this term.

Torino Lounge in Bicester for putting on a children’s quiz on 13th January and a coffee morning planned for Thursday 24th January from 10am to help recruit more volunteers so do go along wearing your ARCh lanyard.

We are always looking for new ways to fund our work.

Easyfundraising is a website that turns your

everyday online shopping into FREE donations when you use it to shop with over 3,500 retailers such as Amazon, eBay, John Lewis, Argos, NEXT and Booking.com.

The retailers then make a small donation to say ‘thank you’ and easyfundraising gives those free funds to the cause. Please register using this unique link – just search for 'ARCh (Assisted Reading for Children in Oxfordshire)' and click ‘support us’ -

https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/invite/190DG8/EXRO6F/

Plus, once you’ve signed up and raised £5 in donations, easyfundraising will give us an extra £5 donation!

When you shop with Amazon using the link below the company will make a donation to ARCh.

smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1146276-0 There’s no catch or hidden charges and ARCh will be really grateful for your donations.

Please do share these fundraising ideas with family and friends.

Charlotte receiving a cheque at Waitrose

Volunteer Voice We invite contributions from volunteers for this spot in our newsletter. Please send yours to the office. Volunteer Karen Clarke recommends Usborne Pencil and Paper games book – it contains instructions and templates for playing a vast number of different games – perfect for ARCh sessions. Look out for copies of First News in your schools. It’s a great little newspaper for children, covering topical stories (not just Brexit!) An activity to add to your ARCh session perhaps. www.discoveryeducation.com/puzzlemake is a fabulous website which allows you to make your own word puzzles. The wordsearch maker is particularly recommended. All you need to do is decide on the size of the puzzle, list the words to include and the website does the rest so you can just print and take to your session in school! You can produce personalised puzzles for each of your children, using words from a book they have read or the names of players in their favourite football team for instance. Some volunteers have requested more information on SEN (Special Educational Needs) and so we hope this is useful. There are a myriad of reasons why a child is on the SEN register and there are various categories that children may fall into - only one maybe or perhaps multiple categories. The categories are:

1. Cognition and Learning – learning difficulties, specific learning difficulties - dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia

2. Social, emotional and mental health needs –social and emotional behavioural difficulties, ADD, ADHD

3. Communication and Interaction – speech and language difficulties, autistic spectrum disorder

4. Sensory – hearing loss, visual impairment, multi-sensory impairment 5. Physical difficulties 6. Medical conditions – epilepsy, diabetes etc..

Book News Aforementioned volunteer Elaine Steane’s latest book may be of interest to many of you. Soapsud Island is a history of Sunnymead, an area of North Oxford, receiving its nickname due to the many residents who took in the laundry of University dons in the early part of last century. The book contains

many interesting contributions from residents, past and present. An entertaining and educational read! Congratulations Elaine! We are very excited to announce that volunteer Maggie Lloyd’s new book ‘Bubble and Squeak’ will be published in February and we look forward to sharing copies with you. The book is written as a duologue, perfect for shared reading, as ARCh volunteers know.

Also local Bicester author Anna Luciano has just had her first book published, ‘Jess and the Pirate Hat’ and we have ordered some copies which you will be seeing at book exchanges this term.

Other News Last but not least, we are so proud of our Fieldworker Amanda Frank who in November completed an amazing 384 kms of cycling in Costa Rica in aid of charity Student Minds. The trip was not without hazards and we were so pleased to welcome Amanda back safely. Well done Amanda!

For more details on the amazing feat please go to: https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/amandafrank1