Impact
Working closely with children over sustained periods of time, we see the transformation that our workshop leaders and volunteer story mentors can achieve in nurturing literacy and writing skills. There’s no measure for a moving, funny, beautifully illustrated piece of work, but it’s important we get the children and young people we work with to reflect on their progress as it helps them to consider their journey and see themselves as young writers.
In 2023 we worked with business consultancy Always Possible to develop our Theory of Change and from that we created a whole new evaluation framework. The children and young people we work with all complete self evaluation forms twice a year, we also gather feedback from parents/carers, volunteer mentors and workshop leaders and a range of other stakeholders to consistently check we are doing the best we can.
In 2024-25 we worked with Kerryn Wotton of Keko Support and Consultancy and our stakeholders to create our new
3-year Strategic Plan which maps out our journey from 2025 to 2028.
Our strategy outlines how we’ll use our time, energy and resources to achieve real impact over the next three years and how the lives of children and young people will be positively changed through writing with Little Green Pig.
Between April 2025 - April 2028 we will focus on the following strategic priorities:
Creating powerful experiences
Developing pathways for progression
Building partnerships in the community
Taking pride in our difference.
I think the fact that the students each finished the project with a poem they had created themselves, that was uniquely theirs and that they were proud of was phenomenal! The experience broke down preconceptions they had about writing and poetry and made it more accessible to them. They were all excited and proud to read their poetry, which is thanks to yourself for presenting the project with a certain importance and gravitas. You set the ground rules straight away and also calmly insisted that everyone contributed and that there were no 'opt outs.' I think this balance was important for the success of the workshop and without it, we may not have got such honest and personal poetry from them.
Lauren Howfield, English teacher and High Prior Attainment Co-ordinator at Brighton Aldridge Community Academy reflecting on Through the Tunnels of Moulsecoomb project