Learning life lessons from reading

Published on isbi School News dated Monday 10th of August 2015

Times Educational Supplement, 29 May 2015 by Radheka Kumari, Bedales Sixth Former “We are all humans.” This was the simple yet profound answer I was given by the Year 7 boy I read with every week when I asked him what made us the same. It was an answer that, in its own way, demonstrated the success of the scheme we were participating in. That scheme is a reading mentoring programme between sixth-formers like me at Bedales School in Hampshire and Year 7s at the Charter Academy in Portsmouth. The aim is not just to build literacy but to improve social understanding and create a community. It’s quite a task. On the face of it, there is little to connect the two schools or the students who attend them. We’re just a 25-minute train journey apart but so much separates us. Most obviously, Bedales is a leading independent school in the leafy countryside and Charter Academy is a comprehensive with an inner-city catchment area that has high levels of disadvantage. Building bridges requires both groups to recognise that this is a two-way process. Read the full article: https://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=11007440