Success stories
A day of conversation: promoting communication in Sheffield
13 Jul 2011
As part of the year of communication, a large scale Communication Day was held in Sheffield to engage children in communication and to raise awareness of Every Sheffield Child Articulate and Literate - Sheffield’s City Wide Literacy Strategy.
The event started with the launch of ‘Chatterstream’, a digital collection of children’s voices talking about what they like about Sheffield, encompassing the city’s many cultures. This was played across the City’s Winter Gardens for a week during June for the public to listen to. Over 1000 children from Sheffield Primary schools then took part in a ‘Mad Hatters Talk Picnic’ in the city centre, where they shared talking activities linked to a performance from the Mad Hatter himself.
The Communication Day helped children of all ages engage in conversations with their peers from across the city, giving them the opportunity to express themselves and learn to communicate via different means.
In the afternoon partners (including policy and performance officers, alcohol and substance misuse officers, family development workers, cultural mentors and Multi Agency Support Teams- MAST) met with Sheffield City Council colleagues to discuss literacy and its role in life chances. Partnership working is at the heart of Sheffield’s drive to improve life chances by ensuring everyone has the literacy skills they need to succeed in life.
Sheffield City Council’s strategy was developed in partnership with the National Literacy Trust and has helped extend the reach of literacy support to vulnerable children and families. By working with partners such as Adoption and Fostering, housing and the MAST teams, Sheffield is helping narrow the gap in life chances.
Read more about Sheffield’s approach in a blog written by their Director of Children’s Services, Dr Sonia Sharpe.
Find out about how other local authorities are improving literacy through local partnerships in our report.
Get more ideas from other local authorities at our conference on 11th October. The conference includes with a key note address from Frank Field MP on the role of low literacy in Child Poverty.
