TNRP Annual Report July2024 - June 2025
TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT 2025
This year, the Norfolk Reading Project has celebrated ten years of working with children and their teachers to support struggling readers in schools across Norfolk.
TNRP was established in 2015 to help address the low levels of literacy in the county and in the last decade we have trained over 600 Reading Support Volunteers to listen to children read in over 100 primary schools in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Norwich and Norfolk. This support is as vital in 2025 as it was in 2015 and the requests from schools for volunteers continue to grow.
Feedback from the schools has been very positive as they appreciate that not only are TNRP volunteers fully DBS checked but they have been trained in phonics so that they can help to support the reading methods used in school. Our trained volunteers work alongside teachers to provide opportunities for children to read with an adult outside of a busy classroom, building confidence, self-esteem and reading comprehension.
Across the year July 1st, 2024, to June 30th, 2025, we held eight training sessions for new Reading Support Volunteers – seven in Town Close School in Norwich and a further session in Thetford Job Centre. We trained a total of 85 new volunteers during these sessions to support children in schools in their local communities. We also continue to offer training for young adults in the Sixth Form of both Norwich School and Thetford Grammar who will mentor primary age children in local schools. We have also offered training for two local businesses – Smith and Pinching and Hansells Solicitors so that they can provide Employer Supported Volunteers to their local schools.
We continue to work with Norwich Community Foundation to promote Employer Supported Volunteering in local businesses and to provide support for local food hubs. We were involved in a presentation to the Nourishing Norfolk Network to establish connections with the food hubs for future training sessions. We have continued to develop a training webinar for both ESV and the staff in the food hubs - this should be available later in the year.
The National Centre for Writing is developing a new strategy to be launched later in the year and TNRP (along with many other creative educational partners) has been involved in conversations to help shape this bold new vision to make Norwich a city where reading, writing and their lifelong benefits are championed and accessible to all.
In addition to the training sessions for new volunteers, we have continued to offer a programme of workshops for our volunteers to support the work that they do in school. During the year we held three workshops which were all attended by over 50 of our volunteers.
- SEND – Special Educational Needs and Disability workshop – Miriam Jones
- Have Your Say! – A problem-solving workshop – Gillian Holland.
- How to Get the Most Out of Your Volunteering workshop – Panel of Education Experts.
These events are fantastic opportunities for our volunteers to exchange ideas and to feel more confident and effective.
We are very fortunate to have received generous donations throughout the year from both individuals and organisations including Aylsham Agricultural Show £250, Chelsea Square Trust £2,500, Kumon £195, The Norwich Businesswomen’s Network £7,200 and The Order of Women’s Freemasons – Wroxham Branch £580. We would also like to thank the family and friends of Jenny Hawker, one of our much-loved volunteers who sadly passed away this year, for their generous donations.
We have again attended multiple events with small teams of willing volunteers manning our stand and newly acquired gazebo to promote our work and recruit more volunteers to join our growing team across the county. These events included – Norwich Book Festival, Aylsham Agricultural Show, Kumon Awards, Thetford Volunteers Fair, Voluntary Norfolk Event.
The Volunteer / Schools portal has been developed and will be launched in July 25. This has been a long process but should enable the charity to become more effective and to have improved communication with both the schools and volunteers. We would like to thank Colin Richardson and his team at BigFork for all their work on this project.
We have welcomed a new Trustee to our team – Joe Hedinger. Joe is a book seller at The Book Hive in Norwich – a local independent bookshop and brings both experience and enthusiasm. The Book Hive has offered to help TNRP to promote the work we do and to help us to secure a speaker for our 10th Anniversary event. We would like to offer our thanks for this support.
Future readers stem from a culture where reading environments for young children are nurtured. This is where children develop not only vital reading skills but the joy of being lost in a story where characters and adventures come to life. TNRP provides a crucial role in building these environments for children at a time when schools face increased financial pressures.