Jessica’s Wonderful Work in Schools

27 January 2022

Youth worker, Jessica, has been taking part in some brilliant work in Berkshire’s schools.

The Wren

Jessica has been running small group sessions got young people in Years 7 – 10 at The Wren School in Reading. Jessica will be working with the students on a number of different things, from behaviour management strategies to future aspirations, and other topics which will help young people through their secondary school transition.

The first sessions were introduction sessions when the young people expressed the things they like to do in their spare time, sparking conversations around some sports clubs that they want to join. They also started to look at what goes well for them in school and the other things which aren’t going so well for them in school. Each young person had something different they weren’t happy with in school and they started to plan with Jessica how they could improve these things for them.

Sessions are planned to continue weekly, keeping track of progress made and checking in on the action plans they have created, updating them as they go. Activities will then be delivered each week to help with the difficulties that young people are facing.

Bradfield College Leadership

The young people at Bradfield College have been planning the activities that they are going to deliver in small groups to the rest of the group. They have had to think about lots of things when planning their activities, including: effective communication, types of leadership, group stages and challenging behaviour – how this can escalate and how they can de-escalate situations.

After splitting into three small groups, they have planned the types of activities they want to do, thinking about lots of different factors such as: equipment, weather, ability, rules, safety, demonstrations and age of participants. Once they had planned their activity and collected all of their equipment together, they had to deliver their activity with another small group taking part in the activity and the other group peer assessing the activity leaders.

Once all groups have delivered their activities, the young people will have to assess themselves and reflect on the positive things they did in each element of the activity from planning and delivery. They will also think about building points that they could use to improve both the activity itself and their delivery of the activity if they were to deliver this next time.

Well done to all of these young people, and to Jessica, for all of this fantastic work!