Irwin Mitchell Staff In Sheffield Give Up Lunch Breaks To Boost Local Literacy And Numeracy

As World Book Day approaches on March 2nd, staff from Sheffield based law firm, Irwin Mitchell, are giving up their lunch breaks to help students from Chaucer School improve their literacy and numeracy skills.

A group of 17 members of staff will be spending one lunch hour each week helping Year 7 pupils through the Business Class school-business partnership programme managed by Business In The Community through the Prince’s Responsible Business Network.

Last year, through the same initiative, Irwin Mitchell, helped all the children involved in the scheme improve their reading age by between two to three years.

The law firm is providing taxi’s for staff to transport them from their city centre premises to the school in Parson’s Cross.

Once there, they will spend half an hour listening to their allocated child read or helping them with maths exercises, before heading back to the office.

Associate director at Irwin Mitchell, Karen Codling, who leads on the school partnership, said the scheme was proving popular with both staff and students at the school.

Expert Opinion

It has been incredible to see the improvement in the reading and mathematics skills of the children, all of those taking part in the scheme improving their reading ages by two to three years.

From a business point of view the number of our staff volunteering to take part in the scheme and help the children continues to grow, all of them reporting back about just how much they enjoy taking part and helping in the development of the students. Karen Codling - Associate Director

Charles Solomon, an administrator on the firm’s personal injury team, is now into his third year of volunteering on the scheme and said: “I think Right to Read and Number Partners are a fantastic opportunity to help make a real difference; it’s amazing to see the improvement over the weeks. Not to mention it’s really fun.”

Chaucer School's Assistant Head Teacher, Dave Mountford, said: “Right to Read has been invaluable in helping groups of students receive additional support that has had a significant impact on their reading ages.

“This is helping them increase their confidence in accessing more challenging work across the curriculum. All students involved have thoroughly enjoyed working with their reading partner and have been very grateful for the opportunity.”