Do you have a cohort of young people who you want to reach within your school and prove to them that their stories are being heard?
We are currently running a pastoral focused programme at Jo Richardson Community School to build Year 8 students' self-esteem, develop their self-expression through writing and improve engagement with school.
We are opening this opportunity for more schools to experience a tailored 10 week project including group storytelling workshops, 1-1 coaching support, and the public celebration and publication of their stories. The programmes could support a range of student needs, for example EAL, SEND, low literacy, social and emotional support across KS3 to KS5.
Our proposed model is an alternating model across 10 weeks where in the odd weeks, young people receive 1-1 20 minute coaching session from an experienced Write Back facilitator and mentor and then in the even weeks the whole group assembles for a collective storytelling workshop. At the end of the project we will then run a celebration for the participants for the storytellers, their peers, teachers and families.
We have already secured part funding of these in-school programmes from successful applications to Spectris Foundation, Parks Trust and the Mercers' Charitable Foundation and this means we can fund over 50% of the costs of these programmes. However, schools would need to contribute £2000 which cover the costs of publishing and printing the young people's work, resources for the sessions and the time of two highly experienced educators who would facilitate the project.
Please note that we only have limited spaces for these programmes and so completion of this form is not a guarantee that we can deliver a project like this this year in your school. We apologise if this is not possible this time.