Improving reading for learners through colleague collaboration

At Novus, we are always looking for new ways to support our reading strategies across prison sites. Recently, HMP Durham held a Novus reading network meeting, with the purpose of improving reading for learners through colleague collaboration.

The reading network meeting was hosted by Kirsty Stafford and her team at HMP Durham where Novus colleagues from four regional Lot areas met to share ideas, work through challenges, and celebrate achievements in reading. 

The importance of the Novus reading network meetings 

We generally only have one reading specialist tutor in a prison, and their job requirements are different to those of a class tutor so, network meetings like these are vital to enable idea and best practice sharing to happen across sites, and it's one of the real benefits of Novus having so many sites. Through the Novus reading network meetings, reading specialists come together and establish the best ways of working to support emergent readers and promote their prisons reading strategies. 

All colleagues whose work involves supporting or promoting reading, are invited to the meetings and July's meeting saw library colleagues, student support workers, hub managers, strategy leads and reading specialist tutors come together to talk about all things to do with reading. 

Discussions covered important topics such as; screening, overcoming logistical issues to access learners, recent Ofsted feedback, ways to embed reading strategies throughout the wider prison and the latest resources and initiatives to develop reading for pleasure. The meeting also included a tour of HMP Durham's library and education department to see the impact of reading activities there. 

Positive outcomes for both colleagues and learners 

The meeting was a huge success amongst colleagues with positive feedback including:

I really enjoy these meetings as we are all very isolated at our own sites and this gives us the opportunity to see each other, share our experiences and create stronger connections for future collaborative working. I come back to work feeling confident and enthusiastic

Being able to network and share ideas means I can take away best practice for my own site and have good examples of how these ideas have worked elsewhere to try and support me implementing them  

The meeting resulted in a number of positive outcomes which will look to improve reading experiences for learners and increase opportunities for reading for pleasure within the prisons. Work has now also begun on a reading support directory, to improve transitions for those who transfer to different prisons in the middle of a one-to-one reading course, and plans have started for a cross-region reading celebration week pencilled in for October. 

Events like this, offer colleagues the opportunity to collaborate and share ideas with one another, where colleagues from different sites can take away valuable projects and initiatives to incorporate in their reading strategies. The meetings not only give colleagues the opportunity to network but also create an environment for new ideas and concepts to flourish, enhancing our reading provision and supporting more and more learners in reading than ever before.

To read more about our reading provision, take a look at the news section.