Dads Kids Club Newsletter 03.

UK Pioneers issue.

Dads Kids Club is a dad-led Community Interest Company that invites men to get more involved in their kids' education - improving children's educational engagement, men's mental health and life opportunities for both. We work with dads and male carers of all backgrounds, identities and beliefs to co-design and co-run screen-free, hands-on activity clubs for their kids, and for children in their community who don't have a father figure at home.

Dads Kids Club Headlines

Welcome to the third Dads Kids Club newsletter. So there’s lots of news to share in this issue, including a number of UK firsts for Dads Kids Club and friends.

We joined the UK’s first ever Push for Paternity march, founded by the pioneering Elliot Rae MBE, the march (2nd May) with Leeds, Nottingham and London dad, male carers and kids. The demand is simple: increase men's paternity leave from 2 week statutory to 6 week statutory, currently paid at £194.32 (less than minimum wage). Those first few weeks are chaotic, and for those families who experience a complex birth much more support may be required with limited movement and lifting capacity for 6 weeks following a cesarean for example. UK Paternity leave is a Dad joke - which was the best poster we spotted, and cleverly notes Britain offers the worst parental leave in the EU - in Sweden, new dads get 34 weeks on 80% pay enforced by law. Surprisingly the USA is one of the only three countries in the world offering no statutory paternity leave by law. We have to push for better paternity leave for everyone. Dads Kids Club’s Sam and Scott both got on telly talking about why 6 weeks paternity leave should be statutory.

BBC News with Dads Kids Club’s Sam Lehane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygITuQtyaR0

Sky News with Dads Kids Club’s Scott Leonard https://news.sky.com/video/dads-push-for-better-paternity-leave-13539472

We volunteered at the UK’s first ever Festival of the Boy - created by the brilliant Abi Wright, Jen Toll, and Laura Mulvaney. They’re the team behind Festival of the Girl, too. It was a joyful space where boys could explore their interests, challenge gender stereotypes, and meet different role models. The event was a dynamic collaboration of curated organisations, campaigners and companies striving to evolve the opportunities for gender equality. The festival brilliantly presented important topics in exciting ways that encouraged everyone to actively get involved in the conversations. My kids (aged 8 and 12) explored everything amongst the volunteering. They played a game all about misogyny, listened to stories about managing parental mental loads, and made para cord bracelets with Mountain Girl. We left enlightened and inspired, ready to re-think things and to try new ways of doing things.

The Chair of the Education Committee, Helen Hayes kindly invited us to host a Parliament Dads Kids Club inviting MPs, Lords and their kids to experience a session and meet dads, male carers and kids from London and Yorkshire Dads Kids Clubs. The Parliamentary session will highlight the power of father-child shared learning and showcase the amazing work being done by thousands of dad, male carers and kids to create better life opportunities for each other around the UK. Lord Babudu will be joining this UK Parliamentary first with his kids along with special guests including Mark Brooks OBE - Director of Policy for the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys. We will share coverage in the Autumn of the event.

A quick funding and partner update. We completed the School of Social Entrepreneurs London Health Accelerator and successfully pitched to an esteemed panel to secure growth funding. London Cycling Campaign is awarded John Keble Dads Kids Club round 6 funding to Share the Joy of Cycling for a full academic year. They will build on the success of Jessop Dads Kids Club that ran the pilot programme a few academic years ago that got more pupils and parents riding bikes than ever before. Virgin Unite - Local Legend 2026 Award was recently announced, celebrating Andy Fishburn MBE - MD of Virgin Start-Up  volunteering contribution launching Dads Kids Club, and offering financial support directly to local organisations tackling society's most pressing issues.

Last but far from least our kind friends at Lego and Pan Macmillan donated some amazing learning tools to the clubs. 

The Lego Foundation generously sent Play Boxes (10kg) to each club. The unboxing was one of the highlights of the sessions along with the themed building completions that naturally followed. A huge thanks to May Chan of Lego’s Social Responsibility Team for making that happen. 

Pan Macmillan share our ambition to get more men reading to kids and increasing child reading overall. They kindly donated a beautiful series of nature inspired books as art competition prizes. A massive thanks to Jodie Williams Head of DEI & Social Impact at Pan Macmillan for making that happen and inviting us to talk on the equal parenting panel following the momentum of the UK’s inaugural Equal Parenting Week.

We will follow up with the winners of recent Art and Lego competitions and contact the winners. What is super clear, is that regardless of how much creative talent the artist or builder begins the competition, by working together that dad and kid combo always create something neither of them expected that together makes for discovery, a trust in each other to solve a problem or challenge and most importantly shared memories unique to them of trump over the unknown, which is a wonderful learning for future life.

Here’s some updates from the playground…

Helping more men read to kids…

Inspired by the The Fatherhood Institute FRED (Fathers Reading Every Day) programme we recently committed to getting more dads and male cares reading to children. Harper Collins’ survey topline stats are stark: only 41% of children under 5 are read to frequently today, down from 64% in 2012. This 23% reduction in just over a decade, means hundreds of thousands of young children are growing up without regular shared reading at home.

And the super sad news is that Parents themselves are disengaging from reading too. Only 40% of parents say reading aloud to their children is "fun for me," and 34% say they simply wish they had more time to do it. There is also a generational shift in attitudes: Gen Z parents - who grew up with technology are more likely than older generations to see reading as an educational task rather than something enjoyable, with 28% describing it as "more a subject to learn" compared to 21% of Gen X parents.

Reading is increasingly being associated with school pressure rather than pleasure. Almost one in three children aged 5 - 13 now say reading feels like a school subject rather than something fun - up from one in four in 2012. And despite government guidance encouraging daily reading for pleasure in schools, only 24% of children aged 5 - 10 had a daily story time session at school in 2024. So the story is simple = dads need to read more to their kids, especially to boys. They also need to pick up more books themselves and lead by example.

We’re striving to give away free books to dads, male carers and kids at every session and thanks to the Children’s Book Project we estimate 650+ free books have been chosen together by male parents and children to read together. Stig of the Dump was one dads favourite, mine was Danny Champion of the World. 

What about you - and what’s your next book you’ll read with your kid going to be?

Beyond the playground to public learning spaces…

Encouraged by Project Smith and with funding from the London Community Foundation, we partnered with Vauxhall City Farm to host 3 months of Dads Kids Club sessions on the farm in May, June and July. Activities, workshops and events have been co-designed specifically to work with this unique space and it’s attracting hundreds of dads, male carers and kids. A big shout thank you to the Vauxhall City Farm team and Sharon Noble for her enthusiasm, energy and can-do-attitude. Big thanks to all the Dads Kids Club volunteers over the weekends too. Our last session is on July 25th - sign up here.

Families from 31+ nurseries and primary schools have attended so far, demonstrating that brave dads and male carers will travel with their kids to have fun and learn together. A number of tourist families have also visited after discovering the events online, and marvel at how many dads and male carers, who start the session as strangers are getting involved and are volunteering to make it happen.

London has 12 city farms, with 200+ social farms and gardens across the UK - so there’s scope for growth. There’s approximately 3,800+ libraries across the UK and countless community, sports or social spaces available for shared family or father-child learning. Our ambition is to invite all of the 8.6 million (5.4m kids + 3.2m dads/male carers) primary school aged kids, dads and male carers to participate in the beyond curriculum shared learning that could change generations of life opportunities. All it costs is time, energy and an ambition to do and learn more together and have fun of course. Here’s to franchising opportunities and fun!

Record numbers of men are turning up to have fun! 

It always starts the same way with the Head Teacher asking us ‘will anyone turn up tonight’ (usually a Tuesday at 7pm). We always say 1 is more than we had this morning, but we’re wishing for record numbers or dads, stepdads, granddads, stepdads, uncles and male carers to fill the school hall. We proudly report that they’re turning up. Not out of duty. They're turning up because they want to. Our first introduction meeting: 11 dads in a school hall. Brilliant. More than we expected. Enough to get started. Another school got: 15 dads. Better still. Word is spreading. Our most recent introduction meeting: 31 dads and a dog. The dog was unplanned but very welcome.

The introduction meeting is where everything begins. A room full of strangers. Men who live on the same streets, whose kids sit in the same classrooms, who've probably nodded at each other on the school run - but who've never actually spoken. Within twenty minutes, something shifts. They start talking. Not about football, not about work, not about the weather. About their kids. About what they wish they were doing more of. About what school was like for them. About what they want it to be like for their children. They bond over the most basic things - a shared laugh about packed lunches, a shared frustration about screen time, a shared pride in what their kid said this week. And then, almost without being asked, hands start going up. "I'm a carpenter - I could run a woodwork session." "I used to coach football - could I do something with that?" "I speak three languages - is that useful?" Strangers become volunteers in the space of an hour.

97% of dads and male carers who have been through a Dads Kids Club believe that if every primary school in the UK had one, it would create better outcomes for dads, children and schools. That's not a statistic. That's momentum.

Endorsement from esteemed academics

It’s always great to get a good review or lovely feedback at our sessions, but it’s even better when the person who wrote the PIECE (Paternal Involvement and its Effects on Children's Education) Report gives you a shout out! All of what we do aligns with the recommendations of this Report. Thanks Helen Norman!

The PIECE Report was formally titled What a Difference a Dad Makes, commissioned by UKRI, Leeds University, Manchester University and the Fatherhood Institute. It established that paternal school involvement improves children's outcomes regardless of gender, ethnicity or household income. It identifies KS1 and KS2 as the most critical window for paternal involvement, which is why Dads Kids Club deliberately concentrates all its work here - where male involvement is lowest and a dad's impact on a child's development is greatest. The study tracked nearly 5,000 families and found something remarkable. When dads read with their kids several times a week, 60% reach a good level at age 5. When they rarely do? Just 38%.⁠ That's a 22-point swing. On one activity.⁠ The findings are unambiguous. Dads matter. Differently to mums. Additively. And the effect compounds over time.⁠

Here's what we love about this! We built Dads Kids Club before we found this report. We were just listening to schools, dads, and kids - and doing what felt right. When we finally read PIECE, it read like a checklist of what we were already doing in our Clubs on a Saturday morning, as it lists out seven structured engagement activities we do.⁠

Sport. Making things. Music. Outdoor play. Stories. Books to take home.⁠ The evidence on what works is clear. The challenge isn't knowing what to do - it's creating the conditions where dads can actually do it.⁠

Read more books…

In many ways I’m going back to school and re-learning or in this case learning about things I wish I’d learnt more about way earlier. I was raised by a single parent through my primary school years, so I’d like to think I have some understanding and empathy of a female perspective, however it's obvious that despite my upbringing I have so much to learn about gender difference, bias and equality or inequality.

After a year of reading I’m finally comfortable to share my discoveries to encourage others to learn more, especially men. I’m very conscious of not mansplaining feminism, nor naively applying a narrative - so I’d like to quote the pioneering Bell Hooks: “Feminist politics aims to end discrimination to free us to be who we are - to live lives where we love justice, where we can live in peace. Feminism is for everybody.”

So here are the 3 books that I share a brilliantly diverse range of female experiences. Each has their own approach to communicating the shared challenges of sexism, misogyny, inequality and unfair systemic 

systems and make for essential reads. I only wish I’d discovered feminism and these books earlier.

Feminism Is for Everybody : Passionate Politics By Bell Hooks

Bell Hooks brilliantly argues that feminism is not an exclusive movement for women,

but a political vision rooted in ending sexism and sexist oppression that benefits everyone regardless of gender. She strips away the academic jargon that has made feminism feel inaccessible, presenting it as a practical, everyday politics centred on love, justice, and mutual liberation. She contends that until people broadly understand that patriarchy harms men as well as women, the movement will remain unnecessarily marginalised and misunderstood.

The Pink Tax by Janine Rogan

Janine Rogan exposes the systemic financial disadvantages women face - from paying more for everyday products and services to earning less and being underserved by financial systems historically designed by and for men. Rogan combines personal finance advice with a feminist lens, empowering women to understand and fight back against the economic inequalities quietly draining their wealth throughout their lifetime. The book is both a call to awareness and a practical guide, arguing that closing the gender wealth gap requires both individual financial literacy and broader structural change.

Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates

Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates grew out of the Everyday Sexism Project, founded in 2012 as an online platform where women worldwide shared experiences of gender inequality, receiving thousands of responses within days. The book weaves together these testimonies - from street harassment to workplace discrimination - building an undeniable portrait of sexism women navigate daily, yet is routinely dismissed as normal. Bates makes a powerful case that naming and publicly documenting and discussing everyday sexism is the essential first step toward dismantling it.

Thank you…

The one thing that unites us all at Dads Kids Club is the ambition to be greater father figures for our kids and to help others trying to do the same. It's super clear there is no right way to be a dad or male carer. It’s okay to not have all the answers, to ask for help when needed, and to receive support when offered. Together we are stronger, and together we can change our worlds.

Scott