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The parents and children most in need of intensive literacy support do not always have a strong voice, but they do need to be heard.
Reading Recovery champions are passionate about improving literacy for all children and have lent their support to help raise awareness of the needs of these most vulnerable children.
 | Gillian Anderson OBE Gillian Anderson gained worldwide recognition in "The X-Files", garnering awards and critical praise over the show's nine-year run. Other notable credits include "The House of Mirth", BBC's "Great Expectations", "The Last King of Scotland", the acclaimed miniseries "Bleak House" and "The Crown". Her most recent stage role in "A Streetcar Named Desire" won her An Evening Standard Theatre Award for her performance as Blanche Du Bois. Her most recent film roles include: "Robot Overlords" opposite Sir Ben Kingsley, and Sandra Nettelbeck's "Mr Morgan's Last Love" opposite Michael Caine. Recent TV credits include NBC's "Hannibal" and the BBC2 series "The Fall". |
 | Jack Butland Regarded by many as the finest young goalkeeper in the game, Jack became England's youngest ever senior goalkeeper against Italy at the age of 19 in 2012, and enjoyed a stunning Premier League campaign for Stoke in 2015/16. Jack has also played for Birmingham City, Barnsley, Leeds United and Derby County. Currently he plays for Scottish Premiership club Rangers. At international level, he represented England at all age-group levels, playing for the under-17 team that won the 2010 European championships and for the under-20s at the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup. He was part of the England squad at UEFA Euro 2012, and later that year was the first-choice goalkeeper for the Great Britain team at the Olympic tournament. He joined England squad to travel to Russia for the 2018 World Cup. Jack has been a very keen supporter of our Reading Recovery 'Read Aloud' campaign, and enjoyed hearing children from Bristol read over the past few years. He is passionate about the importance of literacy recognising the link between being literate and life chances. He told us that, 'Reading had both entertained and inspired him and that he supports Reading Recovery so that others can also enjoy and benefit from the opportunities offered by being able to read.' Reading Recovery is in safe hands with our champion Jack. |
 | Charlotte Leslie Charlotte Leslie was raised and grew up in Bristol, and was the MP for Bristol North West from 2010 to 2017. She went to school in the constituency before studying classics at Balliol College, Oxford. Before entering politics, Charlotte had a variety of different experience - from working in the charitable sector, to tutoring children, to sports coaching, to television production. She went into politics co-authoring the report 'More Good School Places' for the Think Tank 'Policy Exchange', which first made the case for the Government's policy of the 'pupil premium'. After this, she worked as Special Adviser to then Shadow Education Secretary, David Willetts. As well as her local campaigns focusing mainly on rail, schools and sport, Charlotte's parliamentary work has centred around proposals for a Royal College of Teaching and her campaign for greater accountability and better patient safety in the NHS. In 2011, she presented a Bill to Parliament calling for the NHS to be exempt from the European Working Time Directive. From 2010 to 2013 she was a member of the Education Select Committee and following that she sat on the Health Select Committee until 2015. |
 | Gareth Bale MBE Welsh footballer Gareth Bale played for the Wales national team and for Spanish La Liga club, Real Madrid. He began his professional career at Southampton, before joining Tottenham Hotspur in 2007. He has been awarded PFA Young Player of the Year, the PFA Players' Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the Year, and is quickly earning a reputation as a hard-working and focused player. Gareth has an interest in primary education and through his sister, a primary school teacher, he has become aware of the potential negative impact of failing to learn to read and write. He is committed to raising the profile of the importance of education, regularly donating football memorabilia to a range of educational fundraising events. An excellent role model for young people, he has worked hard to achieve his success but has managed to keep his feet on the ground despite the world-wide attention he receives. |
 | Janet Street-Porter CBE Journalist, author, presenter and producer, broadcast pioneer Janet Street-Porter arrived on our screens in 1975. At LWT, Channel 4 and the BBC she set the template for modern youth programming, winning a BAFTA for the ground-breaking Network 7. She has made numerous television appearances on discussion programmes including Question Time, reality shows including I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and Celebrity MasterChef and on panel games including Have I Got News for You. Since 2011, she has been a regular panellist on the ITV lifestyle and chat show Loose Women. |
 | Pie Corbett Pie Corbett is an English educational writer and a poet who has written well over two hundred books. He is well known for promoting creative approaches in the classroom and has had a great deal of experience as a teacher, head teacher and Ofsted inspector. He regularly lectures on education all around the United Kingdom and he has acted as an adviser for the UK Government. For more information see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_Corbett Pie was a great success at our 2016 Reading Recovery National Conference with a keynote titled 'Growing the Talk for Writing'. He is passionate about ensuring all children get the support they need to become literate and we are delighted to have his support as a Reading Recovery Champion. |
 | Baroness Susan Greenfield Baroness Greenfield became Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology in 1996 at Oxford where she is also director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind. |
 | Sir Chris Husbands Chris Husbands is the Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, a former Director of the UCL Institute of Education. He has written extensively on issues of teaching, learning and education policy and is passionately committed to improving the quality of education and learning for all. He has worked closely in and with schools for all of his career and has advised government, government agencies and local government in the UK and internationally. |
 | Jean Gross CBE Jean is a popular speaker and writer on children's issues. She is passionate about achieving better life chances for children and young people who don't have much going for them in their lives and dedicates her time to trying to make a difference for this group. She has been a teacher, an educational psychologist, head of children's services in a local authority, and a Visiting and Associate Fellow at three universities. Jean has frequently acted in an advisory capacity to government on early years, wellbeing and special educational needs policy. Until 2011 she was the government's Communication Champion for children and young people, responsible for promoting the importance of good language skills. Before this she headed a charity responsible for the very successful Every Child a Reader and Every Child Counts one-to-one tuition programmes, and led work on overcoming barriers to achievement as a Director of the government's National Strategies. |