Volunteer

‘Volunteering has been life changing.’ 

We are confident you will enjoy being part of our team of friendly, enthusiastic volunteers – in a recent survey 100% of volunteers felt that their training helped them carry out their role and 94% felt supported in their role by Learn to Love to Read. 93% of volunteers felt their work made a difference to the children and 100% would recommend volunteering with Learn to Love to Read to others. 

We are able to offer volunteers the chance to either volunteer in school or virtually (or both).  In-school volunteering always takes places during the school day, and usually in the afternoons. Online support will usually happen after the end of the school day. The virtual commitment is 60 minutes and the in-school commitment is for 90 minutes once a week during school term. 

To ensure volunteers build a good relationship with the children, we ask you to commit to volunteering for at least one full school year

Our volunteers work one-to-one with pupils aged 5 to 7 years to support and encourage their reading. Volunteers do not need teaching experience but do need to be reliable, patient, flexible, enthusiastic, good with children and confident in written and spoken English.

APPLICATION PROCESS

If you have decided to volunteer with us, you will need to complete the online application form below.  Once this has been completed, we will contact you to arrange an interview.  Please note we only work with schools in the London borough of Wandsworth and all our volunteers need to live in or within easy reach of that borough. 

We believe that children should never experience abuse of any kind. We have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and keep them safe, and we are committed to practise in a way that protects them. We require all our volunteers to share this commitment.

All applicants will need to go through a safer recruitment process. There will be questions about safeguarding in the interview and we will carry out an enhanced DBS check (criminal record check) for all successful applicants. Any applicant who has lived overseas is likely to be required to obtain an overseas police check - we will provide advice and support for this process but you will need to apply and obtain this yourself. Successful applicants will receive full safeguarding training and be required to confirm they have read and understood several safeguarding documents, including our own safeguarding policy.

Learn to Love to Read is committed to working without bias and offering equal opportunities for our volunteers. We are committed to valuing diversity and working inclusively across all our activities. Our aim is that everyone is treated with dignity and respect. 

 We strongly recommend vaccination against COVID-19 as the best way to protect you and those you meet in school. 

REFERENCES

Please note, we require two references for every applicant.  You must provide name, email and contact telephone number for each referee so we can contact them.

If you are a parent volunteering in your child's school, please provide details of one teacher at the school, plus a personal referee who has known you for at least two years (referees must not be related to you or in a personal relationship with you).

If you are a student volunteer, please provide details of one academic referee from your university and one personal referee who has known you for at least two years (referees must not be related to you or in a personal relationship with you).

All other volunteers should provide two personal referees who have known you for at least two years (referees must not be related to you or in a personal relationship with you).

‘L2L2R volunteers are such a friendly and warm-hearted group of people - it is always a pleasure to arrive at school to see them! The children all have such individual characters and it is lovely to see them grow in confidence and enjoy reading.’