The Hackney Pirates

The Hackney Pirates is an enterprising charity working to develop the literacy, confidence and perseverance of young people in Hackney, so that they achieve both in school and in the world beyond.

We know that young people sometimes need some extra help to achieve their full potential. We believe that providing support outside of school can really help young people to do better in the classroom, while also developing their broader skills. We also believe that learning should be a great adventure! So working together with local schools, families and volunteers, we deliver unique real-world learning projects in our own unconventional learning environment, the Ship of Adventures.

What we do and How we do it

We work with young people aged 9-12 whose teachers think they would benefit from some extra support. The Young Pirates come to our Ship of Adventures after school – it is a weird and wonderful out-of-school learning environment complete with secret passageways, an underwater cave and a ship’s cat. Young people receive some help on their reading through targeted reading support programmes. We also work on our unique creative publishing projects, where young people work with professionals to write their own books, CDs and websites. All our creative products give young people the chance to practise their writing skills but also see the whole project through to publication. You can see some of their work here. We sell the great products they make in our very own high street shop, the Shop of Adventures.