Wise old owls pass on reading skills

IT HAS always seemed a crying shame. Teachers struggle to cope with increasing red tape and growing class sizes, feeling they have no time left to give the children in their charge the personal attention they crave.

At the same time, elderly people - people with valuable skills, knowledge and experience - are left feeling, once they reach a certain age, that they have simply been left on the shelf.

The solution, on the face of it, seems obvious. Invite older people to go back to school - not to learn, but to help teach.

During the last two years across much of Yorkshire, members of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme (RSVP) have been doing just that.

Older people with time to spare and a desire to contribute to the community have been going into the region's primary schools to help youngsters with their reading. It's a Government-inspired scheme that has been piloted up here and which - because it has been such a success - could be copied by other regions, including London.

The man behind the successful Right To Read programme is former Army officer turned merchant banker John Swain.

Working from his home in Aldwark, John - fast approaching 75 but with a full head of grey hair, a thick grey beard and the energy of a man half his age - co-ordinates the work of more than 660 volunteers, mainly aged 50-plus, in 650 schools across York, North, East and West Yorkshire and Humberside.

In North Yorkshire alone he reckons there are 80 primary schools making use of an RSVP volunteer. In York, he believes, up to three quarters of all primary schools have a volunteer.

The volunteers' role is to go into the classroom for an hour or so once or twice a week, and help children with their reading.

John, who is passionate about the value of what older people have to offer, believes the benefits go far beyond an improvement in reading and literacy. The volunteers can, indeed, help turn reluctant readers into competent ones, he says - but they can also help boost the children's confidence, understanding, speaking and even listening skills.

Part of it, he says, is because the RSVP volunteers are often seen as almost grandfatherly or grandmotherly figures by the youngsters they are there to help. Seeing the trust on the faces of youngsters at St Lawrence's Primary School in York when John goes to meet them, it is easy to see what he means.

"It's got to be a good idea to get older people to come into primary schools to help," he says. "Older people have a lot more time, they are far more sympathetic to a child's needs because they have children or grandchildren of their own - and they have got this wonderful grandma or grandpa image."

St Lawrence's headteacher David Thewlis says there is no doubt about the value of the work the volunteers do.

"They do a wonderful job," he says. "At a time when lots of parents are working full time, it is great to find volunteers who can make the sort of commitment that the RSVP volunteers can make.

"Many of them are almost like grandparents for the children, and they really do bring a different approach."

The help of such volunteers has perhaps never been so sorely needed.

Despite the heroic efforts of full-time, often overworked teaching staff, last year more than 20,000 11-year-olds in Yorkshire and Humberside failed to achieve the required standard for their age group in English.

That matters, because in today's hi-tech information age the consequences of poor literacy are alarming. Recent estimates show that poor basic skills in the workplace costs the British economy billions. Nowadays, almost 90 per cent of jobs require good communication skills, and research shows that people with limited literacy - and, therefore, limited communication attainment - are far more likely to experience long-term unemployment.

There could hardly be a better way, therefore, of age investing in youth.

The benefit isn't all one way, of course.

John is the first to admit he got involved with the RSVP because he 'wanted something to do.'

"The volunteers enjoy it," he says. "They would probably be sitting at home doing nothing if it weren't for this. Instead they're getting involved in the community, they're helping."

David Thewlis adds that the reading sessions are often just the start of a much wider involvement in the life of the school. Volunteers often end up getting involved in other activities, he says. We had one volunteer last year who used to go to the school nature club," he says.

"She brought along bird books that her own children had read, made some bird boxes and really got involved.

"The volunteers really become part of the school community. If you bump into them in town, they'll always ask 'how are the children?'"

Now, the work of the RSVP is expanding. In the past, as well as the Right to Read scheme, volunteers have been involved in offering transport for patients to and from GP surgeries and in general community care work.

Now, plans are afoot to expand Right to Read into the first two years of secondary school. Volunteers are also working with primary schools again, to be given the chance to 'go back to nature'.

John wants to get local volunteers involved in a tree-planting scheme, in which they will go out with a teacher and a class to collect seeds, then plant the seeds at school and tend the young saplings as they grow.

"The idea will ultimately be to return the young saplings to the wood or forest from which the seeds were collected.

"We would like to consider this year the Year of the Yorkshire Oak," he says. "That would mean we would get every school involved going along to a forest or park to collect acorns.

"They would grow them and then, when they're about 18 months or two years old, replant them back where they originally came from."

With such ambitious expansion plans afoot, there is a need, as always, for more volunteers.

"We need all the volunteers we can get!" says John.

It could be a chance to make a real difference to the quality of life of local children.

"The education authorities recognise the wealth of communication skills and experience older people have to offer," says John. "And, with a little additional training, that can be used in the classroom to help children to really improve their reading."

RSVP volunteers are usally 50-plus, although some young volunteers, including student teachers, are accepted on the Right to Read scheme. Potential volunteers are fully vetted, before being given detailed professional instruction on methods to be used in their teacher-aid role.

Travelling expenses are met, and volunteers are covered by the CSV's own accident liability insurance.

To find out more, ring John on York (01904) 610198, or write to him at 17, Margaret Philipson Court, Aldwark, York, YO1 7BT.

Updated: 10:18 Tuesday, September 25, 2001