As you know, Future Ready is our flagship programme that we deliver at many of our schools. We have been working with Unity Academy in Blackpool since 2018 and have now finished our fourth year of Future Ready programmes there! We thought we would take the opportunity to tell you about a couple of those projects in detail:
Our Year 10 girls Future Ready group have taken part in a 24 week programme, from October to May. During this extended period, they have explored:
- Identity and personality.
- Understanding of their own personality types/ strengths and weaknesses.
- Self-belief/ confidence development.
- Digital skills through the iDEA award.
- Community projects including completing random acts of kindness. (Christmas Tombola and other festive treats for younger students)
- Explored careers and next steps opportunities.
- Taken part in an exploration trip to Manchester where they looked at careers and visited Manchester Met University.
One of their biggest achievements was creating their 'Our Safe Space' social action project which has focussed on supporting Unity students to feel safe and supported within the school. This campaign has now been adopted by the prefect team for next year to help continue to encourage a safe and supportive school community!
The project included:
· Creating an Instagram page of support and motivational content/ creating posters around school with advice and support.
· Creating a kindness campaign encouraging students to support each other and be kind - those who have demonstrated this have gained a 'Kindness Champion' badge which they have been able to get rewards at school with.
· Teacher Kindness Champions to ensure teachers are discussing kindness and demonstrating this to students.
· Providing care packages for all Year 11 students at the end of exams.
· Creating friendship bracelets and branded postcards/ cakes to give out to Year 10 students to promote their campaign and encourage and motivate others to look after themselves and each other.
The Year 10 boys group took part in a 12 week programme, where they:
- Explored their own personality types/ strengths/ weaknesses.
- Have taken part in team building activities.
- Planned and organised an Easter Egg hunt for younger students as a random act of kindness.
- Developed digital skills through iDEA award.
- Explored career options and discussed different possible routes for their future.
- Developed a mini social action campaign called 'Future Unity Success' where they wanted to support Unity students to look to their future. This involved creating posters with advice about careers/ motivational posters/ designing a brand/ creating revision packs for Year 10 students to help them prepare for their mocks and upcoming GCSE exams.
We continue to love working with Unity, on Future Ready programmes and more, and can't wait to continue helping their students become Future Ready next year!