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How we did it
Life changing
Jackie Barnes, assistant head at Morpeth Secondary School in Tower Hamlets, explains how the Steve Sinnott Fellowship enabled her to set up the ‘It’s Your Life’ project to help underachieving teenagers in the borough.
In 1996 I was deputy head at Bonner Primary School in Tower Hamlets, working with three other primaries and Morpeth secondary. In 2000 we set up Globetown Action Zone to boost educational enjoyment and achievement. When funding came to an end in 2008, we decided to create a charity to sustain the action zone work.
One of the action zone’s most successful projects had been identifying 14- and 15-year-olds who had multiple barriers to success in education, such as anti-social behaviour, poor family life, drug addiction or poor motivation. Their cognitive ability test scores at 11 predicted good GCSE results. By 14 or 15 they were predicted far fewer. We targeted this group.
In 2009 I took part in the Steve Sinnott Fellowship. It gave me time and funding to review our data and put together It’s Your Life, to surround young people with a programme of support to build educational capital and improve their life chances.
We had tracked and supported the 2001 cohort through GCSEs and college, but some dropped out. The support we were giving was not enough. They needed it through to A-levels and beyond. So this is what we did, and 21 of the first cohort in 2001 went on to university – though not all stayed.
We decided not to put the emphasis so much on going to university as on employability. Students often had no financial backing from home and when they got to university and perhaps decided they didn’t want to continue, they had debts to repay. So we aim to give young people the best possible learning skills to go to university or start work.
Some need more help than others. One boy who went to university found his mother had cancer. She was a single parent and he needed help to look after his two brothers, aged six and nine. He came back during his first year and enrolled at a different university. During his second year his mother died. So at 24 he had to care for his brothers, and needed support with housing, benefits and childcare. He did go on to get his degree.
When children come on to the project we tell them they have to take responsibility for their life. A family member or guardian must agree to this and a family worker, based here, works with them. Often there is overcrowding or a drug or alcohol addiction problem we can help with.
Parents are encouraged to join an ESOL class to learn English. We also offer ICT for the over 55s, maths GCSE, a knitting group, keep fit class, and a social enterprise textiles group that makes products to sell. Parents’ involvement in learning has a positive effect on their children’s achievements.
Mentors provide academic and personal support, either one-to-one or in groups. They work with agencies where necessary to address issues such as addiction or gang membership. Some young people from the first cohort have come back as mentors, in their gap year or because they want experience before finding a job. They are wonderful role models.
Every year everyone on the project goes to Strathclyde University in Glasgow for an international two-week stay. The brilliant thing about this is they mix with children from many different countries. Because everyone speaks a different language, with a different accent, there are no class barriers! They attend lectures, go to the cinema and Laser Quest, ice skating, or swimming. They love it. It lets them see what life could be like through staying on in education.
Peer support is important. Young people like to know they’re not the only one from their block going to university. One Eritrean boy went to Cambridge, but couldn’t get a job. He came back to be a mentor. He said everyone seemed to know someone when they were job hunting but he had no-one to turn to. It was all about networking.
So our young people now have a life coach from the Royal Bank of Scotland – someone they can call on if necessary for help or advice.
The Steve Sinnott Fellowship was set up by the previous government in memory of the NUT’s late general secretary, Steve Sinnott.
www.sinnottfellowship.co.uk
Would you like to set up a scheme like this?
Jackie would like to help other schools replicate this project. If you would like to know more, please contact her on 020 8981 5357 or email
jackie.barnes@
glcuk.org.
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