Youth Team

Growing Relationships

This coming academic year we are planning on working alongside growing relationships to work towards a ‘student run’ Garden Centre which will, in turn, fund school and other community projects as well as provide employment education. We are incorporating Growing Relationships ethos and criteria into our projects.

Social Enterprise

During the summer holidays we are engaging students on the summer enterprise project. This will consist of students making and creating products to sell on a market stall at the All-In-One Garden Centre. We are aiming to give students who take part 50% of the money we make, 30% will go back to the business and 20% to the growing relationships community projects (proper financial systems, policies and procedures will be in place before beginning this venture). All earnings for students will be rewarded through VIVOs which will work alongside the school Behaviour Policy.

During the 2016/17 academic year we will continue to use the same financial model as the one above. However, we may use the All-In-One Garden Centre in addition to selling products during winter, spring and summer events to sell our products.

The Social enterprise sessions will be completed over two periods of the school day. Some students will undertake constructing projects and planting products while others will work on business plans and marketing. The days would be split between the Darnhill Site and the Heights Lane Site.

Students will also work outdoor in propose built sheds or polytunnels designed for this project on both Darnhill and Heights Lane. Students will asked to volunteer into the project to target students who are particularly engaged with hands on activities.

Teachers can refer students into the Social Enterprise project and students will sign a contract with agreed behavioral targets alongside a breakdown of the VIVO Miles rewards.

As we are aware of the ever changing school dynamics, we will be constantly introducing new students onto the social enterprise via class referrals and students referring themselves into the Social Enterprise (if agreed with teacher and Centre Manager). The teams of students will be working towards growing and developing the market stall throughout the year.

The various topics of learning throughout the social enterprise will be planned in conjunction with teachers to run alongside the class curriculum. For example, if we are working on percentage of profit with students we will work alongside reinforce learning in the classroom and on the social enterprise.

A member of the Youth Team will also attend curriculum lead meetings to negotiate learning needs between teachers and youth workers.

The main aim of the social enterprise this year is to have 80% of pupils based at the Darnhill and Heights Lane sites accessed the project and outdoor learning in some way. We would like our students to take real ownership of the project and have outcomes that would benefit them for future employment.

Growing Relationships Community

This will be an open access offer too all students across Darnhill and Heights Lane.

As part of Growing Relationships we are aiming to develop our school community, as well as exploring our local community and working on developing it.

We are aiming to grow vegetables and design and create vegetable boxes which will be distributed to families, to the school community and also donated to homeless charities in the local area. We would like to use the skills learnt in school to provide assistance to other community gardens thus positively involving them in the local community.

Later in the year we are planning on exploring local nature reserves/hotspots and creating bug hotels, bird boxes and other activities that support local wildlife. We will also provide weekly trips for each class to go to local nature spots such as Hollingworth Lake, Wardle Reservoir and Healey Dell.

Guitar Lessons

One of the team will provide guitar lessons for students at Darnhill and Heights Lane.

Vocational Courses (PDIOI and Horticulture)

The team will be working with students on :

NCFE Professional Development in the Outdoor Industry course to year 11 and year 10 students.
Horticulture course to year 10 and year 11 students.

Extended Schools

The team run an afterschool club at Darnhill every week.
We offer mentoring after school every week and during the school holidays
We will continue with the social enterprise project particularly on growing and contruct projects during school holidays.
During the holidays we will also provide a variety of sporting and outfoor activities to encourage students to stay fit and healthy.

Mentoring

The mentoring during the 2015-2016 academic year has been very successful.

This coming year as a youth team we are providing a mentoring service of 4 lessons per week. Each mentee will have 1 hour with a youth worker. We have freed up 4 periods per youth worker a week for mentoring.

The mentees will be referred to the youth team from the welfare team with agreed outcomes with each of the students. Each mentoring session will be logged on the 'O' drive with a brief description of discussions.

Depending on students’ needs there will be availability to work with youth worker’s afterschool as part of the mentoring service. The mentoring service will continue throughout school holidays.

The mentoring sessions will be made available to Heights Lane students, Darnhill Site students and home educated students.