Heathfield Community College has been very proud of a project we have been involved with for the past year which has the potential to make some real improvement in the lives of young people all over the country. Ten students from across older year groups have been working with Priority 154 who were commissioned by Save The Children UK to gather real student voice about the impact of experiences of poverty on mental health and learning.
This lived experience is summarised in the report launched at the end of October: https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/what-we-do/child-poverty/uk-child-poverty/child-lock
The culmination of this work was a visit to the HQ of Save The Children in London on the day of their launch for the report. Heathfield students were part of a panel of young people hosted by Shabaz Ali (@shabazsays) joined by students from St Richards Catholic College who were also involved in the project. They shared their ideas with the Save The Children workforce as well as members of the parents’ consultation group who had equally shared their experience of poverty during this cost of living crisis.
Students and staff then travelled to the Department for Education where the Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson and some of her team listened to the comments of the young people which we hope will inform government policy.
The initiative from Save The Children UK has gained some traction with the Media as well as the government’s child poverty taskforce:
Two of our students along with a couple from St Richard’s presented the report to 10 Downing Street; after stringent security checks they got the chance to knock at the famous door and stroke Larry the Downing Street cat!
Jo Taylor, Chloe Surrage and Barry Howard who accompanied the young people are pictured here, but the real heroes of this day were the students involved. Ms Taylor said: “As staff we are proud of their bravery, candidness and deeply held humanity. What a pleasure to work with such brilliant young people.”
A very important part of what we do at Heathfield is to support young people to exercise their voice, to do so responsibly and authentically. This is a powerful example of young people doing exactly that, being listened to, and hopefully influencing government policy for the future.