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Case Study:

A story of social impact through Literacy Pirates

Based in physical and virtual ships, Literacy Pirates support children attending local schools to reach their potential.

Published: 25 January 2023
5 minute read

Producing innovative annual impact reports capturing the amazing work of ‘Young Pirates’ is the cornerstone of mapping out key data for Literacy Pirates. Based in physical and virtual ships, a local teacher started the charity in 2011 as Hackney Pirates based in Dalston with the vision of supporting children attending local schools to reach their potential.

Literacy Pirates is an education charity based in North and East London, developing the literacy, confidence and perseverance of children aged 9-12 years old, who are falling behind in class and have fewer opportunities. The charity has been running for 12 years and has been serving the mostly racialised communities of Hackney and more recently Haringey. There has also been an expansion of services onto a ‘virtual ship’ which is online.

The specific London recovery missions that Literacy Pirates cover are around A New Deal for Young People, however Digital Access for All is also addressed through their corporate partnership that provides free laptops to families who don’t have access to one at home.

Literacy Pirates’ aim is for children to lead successful and fulfilling lives. Their impact is to build confidence, perseverance and literacy skills for young people who complete their programmes so that they can succeed in school and beyond. An example of this is from a Young Pirate called Mariam:

Mariam was shy and afraid to speak up in class. Not anymore. Mariam said, “[Literacy] Pirates has really helped boost my confidence in speaking aloud, helping me improve my writing by making it to a high standard and making me feel like I am welcomed. Sometimes I felt tired but my crewmates [trained adult volunteers] persuaded me to keep going and don’t stop. I like that because it helps me to keep going.”

“[Literacy] Pirates has really helped boost my confidence in speaking aloud, helping me improve my writing by making it to a high standard and making me feel like I am welcomed. Sometimes I felt tired but my crewmates [trained adult volunteers] persuaded me to keep going and don’t stop. I like that because it helps me to keep going.”

Mariam
Participant

Various monitoring and evaluation tools, such as STAR reading tests, surveys and regular briefings, help to contribute towards capturing the impact of the organisation. In the most recent impact report, there have been eleven published products within a year, as well as 270 students completing the programme from three boroughs.

The needs of the community are responded to regularly through surveys, community consultations, and outreach work, such as collaborations with other local charities and taking part in local events such as the Hackney half marathon. Throughout the pandemic, the organisation was agile and moved its operations online a couple of times whilst also being flexible to staff and student needs when it came to working or attending sessions in person.

Key challenges and support needed

There are some corporate sponsorships that have grown over the last few years with more in the pipeline. With the organisation expanding in its size and scope, there will be some challenges around the extra capacity required as the numbers of staff and students increase every year. There is also a potential for new physical ‘ships’ to be built in other boroughs in London or regions across England. The impact this will have on the quality of education will have to be weighed up with the numbers of people who will access the programme.

The types of support that Literacy Pirates would benefit from would be around developing longer term relationships with funders and corporate sponsors, as well as looking to acquire a lease on a property for the expansion of its physical premises. The organisation has weathered the storm of the pandemic well and this is mainly due to the successful online programme that has grown quickly over the past two years. By expanding upon the virtual offering, it will be easier to increase the number of Young Pirates accessing the programme as well as more schools in different boroughs being able to join. It is a resilient organisation due to having many different ways of providing its services from in person to online, as well as there being very capable staff with a clear strategy steered by the CEO over the past few years.

Exciting times ahead

The opportunity of levelling up the country as the government has set out to do in the UK is something that Literacy Pirates welcomes as the CEO has written in this blog. Eliminating illiteracy and innumeracy requires a community wide effort involving many different stakeholders from schools, social services, mental health provisions and sports clubs amongst others. The expansion of the organisation over the next few years will allow for more children to improve their literacy skills as well as developing their community links with other services. As part of A New Deal for Young People recovery mission for London, educational inequality will be tackled, and the organisation will have a big role to play with that. In the recent three-year strategy, raising and investing funds to increase the number of volunteers, students and staff will lead to a greater impact for those most disadvantaged in our society.

Following the motto “We strive for the moon and land among the stars”, the ambitious drive of the CEO and organisation to keep increasing its impact and reduce the educational inequality in London will lead to more children being able to reach their potential.