Unipart scooped a top award today for helping youngsters improve their reading and writing, writes David Duffy.

Six employees of the warehousing and logistics division, Unipart DCM, voluntarily gave up their lunchtimes three times a week for six weeks to help at St Andrew's and Barton Village First Schools and Bayswater Middle School, Oxford.

Now their efforts have been recognised with the presentation today of The Aim High special award for the South East region to Unipart for "the best entry focusing on primary school support in raising basic skills of literacy and numeracy."

Their work was carried out through the Reading Quest programme, a nationally recognised programme in which volunteers work with primary school children. It is currently operating in 12 Oxford schools.

Before starting the programme, the Unipart staff - Mike Pybus, Wendy Druce, Mary O'Brien, Geoff Tyrell, Bill Thomas and Denise Wheeler - attended two training workshops with Reading Quest project manager Penny Tyack.

St Andrew's headteacher Sue Baker said: "The children really enjoy the sessions.

It gives them a lot more confidence when they are in the classroom."

The awards are sponsored by BT and Business in the Community and run with the national Education Business Partnerships network.

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