BPE Celebrate One Year of Supporting Read With Me
BPE has always had a focus on the role it has to play in supporting its local community. From fundraising to volunteering, BPE and its staff place great importance on supporting Gloucestershire’s charities and social enterprises. Read With Me is a social enterprise that supports children around Gloucestershire and the team at BPE has been supporting them for the last 12 months.
Working on reading skills outside of the classroom environment can be difficult for many students, especially those whose parents struggle with reading themselves. English may not be their first language, or they may have complicated home lives which mean that reading isn’t treated as a priority. Thankfully, Read With Me is here to help.
Originally a PR consultant, Linda Cohen established Read With Me in 2020; she had worked with a variety of companies who often wanted to help within their local communities but had no idea where to start. When one of her clients agreed that the team could spend half an hour on their lunch breaks reading with children, Linda was amazed by the impact that the volunteering had on the children’s reading ability.
“I spoke to the headmaster at a local school to ask how businesses could help them, thinking they’d be asking for lots of money. Instead, he said ‘get the staff in to help the kids with their reading – they’re failing their phonics tests.’”
Linda then got in touch with other schools around Gloucestershire who were in desperate need of the support of volunteers. From that point, the work of Read With Me spread via recommendations, and they now have over 350 volunteers and help 65 schools around the Gloucestershire area. This CIC (Community Interest Company) relies on the support of volunteers that can dedicate just a small amount of time to help others.
Jemma Jones, Head of Family at BPE said: “As a Family solicitor, I see so many cases involving children who aren’t getting enough attention. You often wish that there was more that you could do to help. Volunteering with Read With Me has been a great experience for the team at BPE as well as the children. I’m pleased to say that since initially getting a small team of us together from BPE, several members across the business have been interested in volunteering, and we’re excited to start working with a local secondary school, too. Hearing that there are children within our community that are entering secondary school with the reading ability of a child much younger – sometimes as young as five years old – is upsetting. Working with Read With Me has shown us how something as simple as listening to children read for half an hour can really make a difference within our community.”
Jemma encourages the support and coordinates the volunteers within BPE. Currently, 6 members of the Family team volunteer at a Cheltenham primary school on a rota of 2 people each Thursday an hour during term time. This will soon increase once more of the BPE team have passed the relevant background checks. Linda says that this model has been fantastic, and she would love to see more corporate businesses adopt this model if they are looking to support Read With Me.
Read With Me are always interested in hearing from potential volunteers. You can register your interest through Go Volunteer Glos, or by contacting Linda or one of the team directly. Their mission for 2025 is to gain the support of 100 companies that can fundraise £1,000 each to cover the administration costs of training and the necessary DBS checks to keep this CIC running.
BPE are proud to be partnering with Read With Me on this fundraising mission and look forward to updating you throughout this journey.
