Those are My Principles

Sophia Thakur spoke alongside the sound of a harp on stage at The Ned hotel. In melodious tones she recited memories of dead friends who sleep with soil in their mouths now. She rhymed about the injustice of how black history is taught on the curriculum. She talked about self-love too.

As the 25-year-old poet performed, she made expressive hand gestures and looked graceful in a Cinderella-style blue tulle dress. Her look was almost ethereal, until you clocked her shoes: Bright pink crocs.

Thakur’s outfit that evening captures her poetic style well. She is elegant and polished but undeniably practical and unpretentious.

“I’m on the right side of history with these,” she joked to me backstage, pointing at her shoes. "Already on stage you’ve got the nerves and if you’re wearing heels, you can fall. It’s just not worth it for vanity’s sake. About six people can see my feet so I’m completely fine to wear Crocs,” she said.

Indeed, her poetry is unpretentious. She relies on YouTube as a medium for selfexpression and doesn’t think much of those who think being a poet means being a middle class man stuck in a rigid form – or the 18th century for that matter.

In Thakur’s case, this act of communicating has been startlingly successful. Thakur has not only graced the stage at Glastonbury but delivered Ted Talks and appeared regularly on mainstream television. Her debut book Somebody Give This Heart a Pen became a global bestseller before it was even released and on the back of her success she has also worked with creative teams at numerous corporates including Nike, Samsung and MTV.

So did she enjoy her education? Thakur says she did enjoy studying poetry in school but felt the “academic” approach wasn’t necessarily the best way to explore poetry.

“I fell in love with poetry via spoken word. I think in school we took quite an academic approach to something that's meant to be so emotive and like feeling charged. I didn't get an avenue to love it, I just got an avenue to learn it in school,” she tells me.

After school Thakur pursued an academic path and did a degree in politics. She’s still very much engaged in political discussions now, particularly when it comes to the national curriculum.

Indeed, her new comic-strip style children's book Superheroes: Inspiring Stories of Secret Strength, was recently published by Stormzy's imprint Merky Books. It is a response to the fact she only saw black people in history textbooks "in chains".

In her poetry she tries to change the narrative that is taught in schools about black lives and Britain’s past. “If the only time we hear about blackness in school and anything black at all is when we're thinking about slavery or when we're thinking about liberation, then the only stories we have are Nelson Mandela's or Rosa Parks's or whoever else,” she explains, seeming to tail off.

Then she continues: ”We then grow up in a world that perpetuates that narrative where the headlines related to black people are quite negative… It’s just really, really upsetting and I think a lot of these ideologies and ideas do stem from the first seed that is planted in us which is black is weak and lesser and white was dominant and is dominant.”

On people who criticise using modern mediums such as Instagram and YouTube as a way of sharing her poetry and having these kinds of conversations, she says: “It’s really embarrassing because I think art if anything is the truth of the time and the truth of the time is this. This is how we communicate now, this is what poetry is now… oh and TS Elliot would’ve loved Instagram poetry.” And with that, Thakur heads off, Crocs and all, into what I’m sure will be a successful future.

With Sharon Pindar

As children prepare to return to school once more, the phrase ‘education recovery’ is high on the agenda. There is no doubt that children have missed out on every dimension of their education, and despite schools’ and parents’ best efforts, home schooling simply can’t replicate the classroom experience. Government is now grappling with the impact of this missed learning in years to come, potentially affecting employability prospects for a generation.

After the lockdown in 2020, Ofsted reported that primary teachers noted children’s reading skills and confidence were particularly badly affected. However the most alarming findings showed that it was the more disadvantaged pupils, and particularly those with special educational needs and English as an additional language, who had fallen most behind. After years of determined efforts to close the attainment gap, we are now seeing that this progress has been reversed.

National Literacy Trust. Poor literacy can lead to limited job prospects, with strong evidence linking poor literacy and youth unemployment. It can also lead to poor health, low self-esteem and even reduced life expectancy. Moreover, adults with weak literacy skills won’t be able to support their child’s reading, so that without support, the cycle is perpetuated.

The reading charity Bookmark was created to address this crisis. I experienced the impact of poor literacy first-hand as a child as my own mother was unable to read, affecting the family in numerous ways. Today, Bookmark works to give children the reading skills and confidence they need for a fair chance in life, through a flexible and innovative volunteer-led programme.

school during the latest lockdown. Results have been striking; teachers have reported improvements in children’s confidence with reading as well as their attainment, with 90% saying that children enjoyed reading more after the programme.

This last point is critical. As the OECD has found: ‘Reading for pleasure is the most important indicator of the future success of a child and is more important than family’s socio-economic status’. Working from this evidence, Bookmark designed its reading programmes to be fun, interactive and engaging, allowing children to choose their own books alongside those set by the school.

Sophia Thakur

A child who is falling behind with their reading will struggle in every subject at school, and beyond into adult life. England already has one of the lowest literacy rates in the developed world, with an estimated 7.1 million adults struggling with basic reading every day according to the

Research from the Education Endowment Foundation and others has shown the benefits of one-to-one support for children who are struggling with literacy, and Bookmark seeks to give children that support through its pool of trained and vetted volunteers. Initially these volunteers worked face to face with children in schools, but last year Bookmark developed an interactive online programme in response to the pandemic, enabling volunteers to support children from home or work, without compromising school safety measures.

The programme has been well received by schools and Bookmark has been able to rapidly scale up to offer support nationwide, including supporting vulnerable and key worker children in

As the world starts to emerge from this devastating pandemic, it is clear that there are huge challenges ahead in helping children – and especially those who are already facing disadvantage – to recover their learning so that they can fulfil their potential in later life. Moreover, as a country, our economy depends on a skilled, healthy, and literate population. It is absolutely crucial that we focus on addressing literacy now, as a key step on the path back to a healthy future.

Sharon Pindar

The writer is the founder and chair of Bookmark (Aaron Burden on Unsplash)