During the first half of December Energize spent several days working through the Peer Mentoring Course with a number of year 10 and year 12 students from Mark Rutherford Upper School, Bedford.
Students participating on the course took part in a range of games and activities designed to enhance teamwork skills and develop leadership attributes.
After experiencing each activity first-hand, students then compiled a programme of sports and games as part of an activity day to be delivered to lower school pupils. In completing this task the Mark Rutherford students illustrated great organisational ability, dynamic vision and excellent leadership and can be extremely proud of their efforts.
Once the programme was finalised students delivered their activity day to ecstatic pupils from Ravensden Lower School in Bedfordshire. The efforts displayed by students from Mark Rutherford during their time spent at Ravensden was warmly received by the lower school’s headmaster, Mr Paul Stanyard, who stated;
“A great day was had by all. The Mark Rutherford students were encouraging and supportive to our pupils during the activities that they led. The activities included cricket, speedstacks, tri golf, juggling, tennis and football. I would be extremely keen to repeat the event in the spring term.”
Following the successful day at Ravensden, students from Mark Rutherford can look forward to another opportunity to deliver their programme of activities, with Hazeldene Lower School next in line.
For more details concerning the Energize Peer Mentoring Course and other programmes Energize has to offer visit www.energize-solutions.co.uk.
The Energize Peer Mentoring Project ran at John Bunyan School in October for three days culminating in a Festival hosted by Putnoe Lower School on November 2nd.
The project works with Y12 students who have been selected as leaders and Y10 students who would benefit from mentoring. The initial session was only for Y12 students who formed a group and learnt new skills and how to break them down and teach them to others. Y10 then joined the group and were taught new skills by Y12 students.
The students developed their knowledge about learning styles, how to pass on skills, working as a team, roles and responsibilities, organising an event, objective setting, reviewing and evaluation.
By the third day the young people were organising a festival which included the sports of tennis, tag rugby, cricket and football. They each assumed roles and discussed varying scenarios relating to the festival.
The festival was delivered to Y3 pupils and ran very successfully. The students learnt a great deal about leadership and were very enthusiastic about continuing to develop their skills. They all received positive feedback from the staff at Putnoe Lower School.
Comments included from students included:
this was wicked, the kids hung on everything l said’
l hate it when they don’t listen’
l love it when you say something and they all do it’
you can’t take your eyes off them for a second’
why won’t they do as their told’
when can we do this again?’
The course has been run three times at John Bunyan School… Here are some of the previous groups we have worked with…
Following considerable success with the Peer Mentoring Course in Biddenham it was decided that the benefits should be shared with a larger cohort of students.
As a result the Skill Acquisition Workshop was delivered to 200+ young people from years 10 and 12 who are on the leadership track provided by the Specialist Sports College arm of the school.
Recipients of the training were taken through a theoretical and experiential journey to equip them to help deliver effective sports leadership at sports festivals during the academic year…
A. KOLB - Experiential
B. REYNOLDS – Competence
C. BANDLER & G – V.A.K
D. GARDNER – Multiple Intelligence
E. VYGOTSKY – Zone of Proximal…
F. GARBARINO & WINFIELD – Scaffolding
G. HERZBERG – Motivation
H. Garbarino / Winfield - Asset (student strength) Model of mentoring
Students taking part were asked to learn a series of new skills and then consider how they will pass these on to others… Activities included:
Hastingsbury Upper School are seeking to accredit their year 12 students for mentoring activities undertaken with year 11 students. Energize have formulated a course based around an OCN level 2 award “Speaking and Listening skills” to fulfil this objective.
Gary Richardson has delivered a series of workshops to the students to equip them for the vital task of helping the year 11 students. The theoretical and experiential underpinning of the course includes:
Initial training and preparation – listening / speaking / group dynamics / questioning / communication theory
Under-pinning knowledge assessed
Completion of workbooks and accumulation of 16 hours of mentoring individuals and small groups
Social Enterprise Workshop
(Hastingsbury Upper School)
On 20th November, year 10 National Sports Diploma students had their own Social Enterprise day. The aim was to raise awareness of sporting organisations in the local community, to research their needs and to raise money to help them to buy new equipment or kit.
In order to raise the money, students worked with local Enterprise company, Energize (www.energize-solutions.co.uk 01234 272101), to undertake a number of individual and team challenges.
Each successfully completed challenge earned points with a cash-in value that translated into real money, donated by Bedfordshire Police Authority.
Students then completed financial planning activities to work out what they could afford to buy for their chosen clubs.
The local clubs that will benefit include:
Kempston Reds Youth Football
Bedford Junior Blues Rugby
Ridgeway Special Needs School
Elstow Youth Football Club
Students worked extremely hard on the day and we are very proud of what they achieved. Well done to all who were involved and thank you to Mr Collier and Ms Rhodes for organising a successful and enjoyable enterprise event.
Social Enterprise Workshop
(Biddenham Upper School)
The two days held in Biddenham Upper School on the 19th and 20th of July 2006 can be considered a real success. The young people involved in the programme completed a series of challenges working through an accompanying workbook, designed to highlight skills needed for success in enterprise.
On completion of this groups were then asked to nominate a club, centre, team or youth group in the community that would receive sports equipment as a result of participants performances throughout the enterprise day. Once a club, centre etc had been nominated the enterprise day participants then created an order form of sports equipment from a list provided, up to the value of £100.00. This shopping list of equipment would be awarded depending on the number of points each group achieved throughout the day.
The mixture of methodical, financial, resource-based, physical, IT and creative challenges proved to be very popular amongst the young people taking part, allowing them to display a range of skills and learn some new ones along the way.
Young people that took part in the enterprise days, when considering their most important achievements, included:
“getting to know and get on with new people”
(Lauren Burrows, 10H)
“making the right decisions and carrying through responsibilities”
(Neelam Shah, 10E)
“contributing and listening to other peoples ideas”
(Amira Abdu, 9F)
“I have learnt to plan and use resources better”
(Olly, 10B)
“using my imagination effectively and creatively”
(Liana Infurnari, 10B).
Thanks to the great efforts of the young people at Biddenham Upper School and the funding provided by the Bedfordshire Police Authority, Energize staff were able to distribute a range of sports equipment to a total of 19 organisations and community clubs throughout Bedford.
This included a number of youth clubs, boys and girls football teams, youth cricket and youth rugby clubs, schools and colleges, a tennis club and the junior’s section of the town’s athletics club.
As a result of the enterprise days held in Biddenham Upper School £3,000 worth of sports equipment has been donated throughout Bedford to improve access and resources for the town’s young sports men and women. In addition pupils from Biddenham Upper School have learned new skills and improved existing skills in relation to what is needed for success in enterprise.
Play Buddies Project
(Goldington Green Lower School)
As part of the schools efforts to improve the quality of play in the playground and as a result behaviour Energize were asked to undertake a project that involved collecting play ideas from the whole student cohort and compiling them into a book.
During November and December 2006 Gary Richardson and Heather Wright (Trustee of Energize) visited each classroom to collect ideas which were subsequently developed by years 3 and 4 into pictures and analysis of how the game can help with social, physical, intellectual, creative and emotional development.
The book is being compiled as we write and will be utilised in school in 2007
Team building
(Bedfordshire Youth Service – Youth Bank)
Youth bank is a national initiative that has been adopted by Bedfordshire Youth Service. The youth committee selected to administrate the grant giving under the scheme were perceived to be lacking in cohesion as a group.
Energize were asked to provide a training package that would enhance teamwork skills and tighten up procedures for administrating the funds.
Gary Richardson led a team of 6 young people plus Stephanie Large from Kempston Youth Centre in a FIVE hour long session punctuated by very nice fish and chip supper.
Roy Bedford of Kempston Youth Centre speaking of the event states:
The day was facilitated by Gary Richardson from Energize and designed to bring the group of young people involved in the project together to consider how they can work as a team.
The activities encouraged the members to look at their individual skills and strengths, and then how they could be combined to work together effectively to achieve the joint aims and objectives of the YouthBank panel. The variety of inputs and tasks kept the group positively involved for 5 hours.
The feedback was that the session was of a positive experience that brought the group together so they feel more of a team than they were previously. They also have a better understanding as to how they can contribute to the team and operate more effectively together.
Skill acquisition
(Bedfordshire Youth Service – Dream scheme)
Over a period of 6 weeks Energize staff worked with a group of young people from Hartwell Drive in Kempston on a project known as Dreamscheme. During this time Jim Farmer and Mark Loosemore introduced 6 physical activities leading up to a competition between participants centred around those activities.
A Basketball shooting challenge (week 1)
An indoor Golf challenge (week 1)
A juggling challenge (week 1)
A Short Tennis challenge (week 2)
A Team Skipping challenge (week 2), and,
A Volleyball challenge (week 2).
Throughout the sessions Energize staff provided light theoretical reviews covering Teamwork, Learning from Experience, Planning and Leadership in conjunction with the activities.
The training resulted in a number of the individuals from the original group working through a series of stages from consumption of the activity through to helping organise and lead the activities for others.
The objective of the group was to:
Enable those who are ready a chance to develop early signs of leadership that can be employed in a community setting.
Provide stimulating and healthy activities for the other participants.
International Work with Raoul Wallenberg Skolan near Stockholm
After experiencing each activity first-hand, students then compiled a programme of sports and games as part of an activity day to be delivered to lower school pupils. In completing this task the Mark Rutherford students illustrated great organisational ability, dynamic vision and excellent leadership and can be extremely proud of their efforts.
The Energize Peer Mentoring Project ran at John Bunyan School in October for three days culminating in a Festival hosted by Putnoe Lower School on November 2nd.
As a result the Skill Acquisition Workshop was delivered to 200+ young people from years 10 and 12 who are on the leadership track provided by the Specialist Sports College arm of the school.
Under-pinning knowledge assessed
Certification
Each successfully completed challenge earned points with a cash-in value that translated into real money, donated by Bedfordshire Police Authority. 
