Ahoy, matey! Hackney Pirates get kids’ literacy ship-shape

Squid ink ahoy! Hackney Pirates are on a voyage of discovery. Photograph: Hackney Pirates

Skulls and crossbones, drawings of squids and other monsters from the depths: this is what greets you as you enter the headquarters of Hackney Pirates, a buccaneering after-school programme that helps children improve their literacy in ways more outlandish than the most exotic of sea shanties.

Shipmates, aged between nine and 12, get one-to-one attention from volunteers, and channel their overflowing imaginations int0 writing books and producing T-shirts and CDs.

In doing so they build up their self-confidence and acquire new skills, experiences and role models. Published authors, playwrights, poets and other creative types have found their way into the Pirates’ HQ to give workshops.

The focus on producing tangible products such as anthologies of creative writing allows the children, who are referred to the organisation via teachers or social workers, to see the fruits of their efforts.

“At school we all spend a lot of time pretending to do things,” explains the scheme’s education manager Camilla Cook. “We say, let’s write a letter to the Prime Minister, but no one ever sends it. We say, let’s design a chocolate bar, but no one ever makes it.

“That sort of thing. Whereas here we make things and sell them to strangers, which the kids find really interesting.”

This unconventional teaching environment was the brainchild of Catriona Maclay, who was a Teach First teacher at a school in Edmonton and has worked at Ashoka, the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. She founded Hackney Pirates in summer 2010.

Ms Maclay is in Uganda competing in the finals of Join our Core, a competition for social entrepreneurs run by ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s, when the Hackney Citizen strolls onto the main deck at the Pirates’ HQ.

“It’s learning, but in a totally different way,” says Ms Cook, who also trained through Teach First and taught English for three years at a secondary school in north London.

“We don’t overtly teach anything here.There’s no instruction – unless we’re  learning a new skill about stop motion animation.

“There’s no teaching of literacy. What we do is give children the space to practice what they’ve learnt in school, and to see the relevance of what they’ve learnt in school in the real world.”

Ms Cook says her desire to get involved in the pioneering project grew out of her experiences as a teacher.

“When I was teaching at the secondary school, it was just so clear that the children who had lost their way at the  end of primary school were really in  such a difficult situation.

“That’s the danger time, and that’s why we target transition age, we hope to work with children in Year Six and then into Year Seven to provide consistency  in the transition stage.”

Hackney Pirates relies on members of the borough’s sizeable artistic community donating their time, and sometimes second hand recording equipment or artistic materials, for the benefit of these children.

The scheme takes inspiration from 826 Valencia, a free tutoring centre in San Francisco founded by author Dave Eggers, which supports youngsters aged between six and eighteen with their writing skills.

Ms Cook says: “Eggers realised that, of his friends, roughly half were teachers and roughly half were writers.The teachers didn’t have as much time to support the kids as much as they would like, and the writers had lots of time because of flexible working hours.

“We’ve been inspired by that and are using an incredible resource, people with free time on their hands who are interested, who aren’t qualified to be professional teachers, but just someone who can sit next to a child and say ‘Yes! Well done!’”

This positive reinforcement helps children who might lack confidence in themselves or have suffered setbacks in their personal lives to come on in leaps and bounds, and this in turn can be incredibly rewarding for the volunteers.

In some ways the project might be compared with Hoxton-based children’s writing centre, The Ministry of Stories.

Ms Cook says: “We’ve come from a similar route, but actually what we’re doing is very different. They reach lots of people, what we’re doing is targeted on those that have been referred to us.

“We’re very much coming from an educational background. As teachers we’re very much aligning ourselves by what’s going on in school and measuring our progress based on literacy levels, the national curriculum levels. They’re reaching lots more children, we’re doing sustained work with individuals.”

The organisation is currently based, rent-free, in an old college building in Haggerston that is due to be demolished soon.

Ms Cook says: “We have the most wonderful landlord and he allows us to be here rent-free. We pay rates but they’re discounted rates so we’re in a great position. The building is going to demolished.

“It will be demolished probably at the end of this year. The landlord really just need to fill the space for three months and was very happy for us to move in.

“Subsequently he’s got to know what we do and is being really supportive of us and is trying to find a new place for us after we have to move out of here.

“We’d previously been in a place called the Farm Shop on Dalston Lane and we’d also been on the Dalston Roof Park.

It’s really important that we are in a fun space and an inspiring environment, and when the kids moved in here this wasn’t that. It was pretty grim. The first thing we allowed them to do was to write on the walls, which is every child’s dream.”

Pictures of fantasy islands, and fantastical scenes from the high seas, now adorn the walls.

Hackney Pirates has trained nearly 400 volunteers since it was set up, but only around 80 are active at present.

“We need many, many more,” says Ms Cook. “We are currently working in term time with 12 children a day and want to increase this to 25 children a day.”

What are the requirements for volunteers? “A love of piracy,” says Ms Cook.

“Caring about the kids is the main thing. We believe the most powerful learning experience is one-to-one attention from an adult who cares and that adult does not need to be a teacher. With the children we’re targeting, we take 100 per cent referrals from either teachers or social workers.

“They fall roughly into three categories. One is that they might have English as an additional language and therefore that’s holding them back across the curriculum. They might have mild learning difficulties, so dyslexia, nothing too complex.”

They also may have suffered problems at home such as the bereavement of a loved one, or they may simply not be getting the attention they need in cases where they have many siblings.

Since it started, Hackney Pirates has worked with about 100 children.

The organisation is always on the look out for new, particularly male, members of crew. No previous experience working with children is necessary and volunteers attend a short training session during which they get training on child protection and complete a CRB form.

For more got to Hackney Pirates.

The writing's on the wall: Hackney Pirates