Member Article

Ward Hadaway key to literacy programme protection

Ward Hadaway have played an instrumental part in the development and protection of a new national literacy programme.

Katy Parkinson developed the idea for Sound Training for Reading whilst working at Middlesbrough Council as the senior coordinator of the authority’s Learning and Language Team.

Alex Shiel, Partner and Head of Intellectual Property at Ward Hadaway, advised Katy on the transfer of the intellectual property which she had developed from Middlesbrough Council to the new company.

The programme is now helping students from across the UK to improve literacy skills via specially trained teachers and a comprehensive online support suite.

Alex Shiel said: “Katy and the team at Sound Training for Reading have come up with a fantastic programme which has already achieved some outstanding results and promises to be of real benefit to pupils and teachers across the country.

“In setting up the company, it was important to agree with Middlesbrough Council on which elements of the work that Katy has carried out for the authority could be transferred over to the new company and how this would be arranged.

“Because Sound Training for Reading also has a lot of innovative elements as an educational programme, it is also vital to ensure that those are properly protected so that Katy and the team can retain control of their ideas and make full commercial use of them.”

This protection is even more important now that the programme is fully established and being used on a national basis.

Sound Training for Reading is aimed at both secondary and primary school pupils and works by a combination of intense small group teaching sessions backed up with an online resource.

The company provides fully qualified teachers, trained in the Sound Training for Reading techniques, as well as all teaching resources to its school clients.

Mike Williams, Business Manager at Sound Training for Reading, said: “We originally thought we would be able to start in the North East and expand organically, but we are already delivering the programme right across the country.

“Ward Hadaway has been instrumental in helping to set the company up in the right way and helping us to deliver our programme to schools on a commercial basis.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .