Our community projects are designed to celebrate the diverse uses of reading in our lives and students set up projects in a wide range of venues, currently including libraries, pubs, community centres, a drug rehabilitation centre and a prison.

This course is founded on a belief that education has value not only to the individual, but also to society and to the wider community. Students reflect on what they are learning and utilize it in some form in a community setting, from the second to fourth year of the course.

Some students feel nervous to begin with about this aspect of the course. Each student has an opportunity to develop a project that fits with their other commitments and which is in a setting in which they feel comfortable. Often the project is in the form of a reading group, but students can do this work in other ways, if they don’t wish to run a group or if it evolves in a new form out of their interaction with the community. The groups may read literary works that are also studied on the degree or popular fiction, non-fiction, short stories or extracts that are read aloud.

We ensure that all students have appropriate levels of preparation and support in undertaking any project. Students are not expected to take on a wider role in the setting, such as a therapeutic or social care role, even where this is the focus of the work undertaken by the community partner. The focus is on the uses of reading in a wide variety of places.

The range and diversity of projects our students undertake is something we celebrate and each project is also shaped by the needs, interests and participation of the community with whom the student engages.