Local Canterbury clubs joining forces to tackle children’s learning difficulties

In a first ever, Canterbury League Club, Canterbury Hurlstone Park RSL, Campsie RSL and The Lantern Club have combined resources to help 50 primary school children with learning difficulties improve their literacy and numeracy skills.

Using a pooled donation of $50,000 the four clubs have partnered with Learning Links, a service organisation which helps children with learning disabilities, to deliver programs to four local schools – Lakemba Primary School, McCallums Hill Primary School, Canterbury Primary School and Croydon Park Primary School.

In a show of positive community spirit, the program will also be using staff volunteers from all four clubs who will be trained to become Reading and Counting Buddies; they will meet with children in Years 3 to 5 once a week for 10 to 15 weeks and play interactive learning games which aim to develop the child’s literacy and numeracy skills.

“It’s wonderful to see these four Clubs come together to help combat a real and very serious issue faced by children and educators in their local communities,” said Birgitte Maibom, CEO of Learning Links.

Today in Australia approximately 10% of children have a learning difficulty and struggle in the classroom where teachers are hard-pressed to meet the needs of all their charges. With minimal financial support available for them, many children never receive the help and intervention they need to stop them falling behind.

“Each of our clubs could have gone ahead with individual projects but we have a much greater impact across a wider geographical distance by working together – we’d reach more schools and more children. It is a very solemn issue when kids going into high school don’t have the numeracy and literacy skills to get them through,” said Dr George Peponis OAM, Chairman of Canterbury League Club.

“This collaboration is the first that we’ve done with the other clubs and we are excited to see the results. It just goes to show what can be achieved when clubs in the community come together and become a driving force in improving the education outcomes of children living around the area.”