As we come to the end of another busy term we would like to thank you for your incredible efforts each day to transform the life chances of your young people.
We would like to welcome so many new teachers who have joined our community in the last week. It is great to have you as part of our team.
We aim to make you feel psychologically safe, supported and able to contribute to our movement, so do please feel free to engage, ask questions and share our collective mission with like minded colleagues in your communities.
Liverpool leading the way
Our founder, Neil Moggan, spent last week visiting inspirational teachers, brilliant children and trailblazing schools in Liverpool.
Our collective vision, with and through schools and partners, is to make Liverpool the leading city for trauma informed PE in the country, to transform children’s life chances.
Trauma informed practice helps young people in the short term by transforming relationships in the classroom, which have a knock on effect on engagement, behaviour, attendance and improved progress and attainment.
These are all issues we recognise as major challenges in the vast majority of schools up and down the country, at the moment, when compared to pre pandemic levels.
More importantly though, trauma informed practice has the ability to transform children’s life chances in the long term by breaking the cycle of Adverse Childhood Experiences through emotionally available adults.
These are all ambitions we have for all of our young people and the good news is that staff can be trained to develop these key skills.
An exciting vision
We are partnering with Liverpool Schools Sport Partnership (LSSP) and 4 great schools to create a trauma informed PE pilot programme, with the aim of rolling out the programme to all schools across the city if they wish to take part.
The 4 schools are the Academy of St Francis Assisi, Belvedere Academy, Childwall Sports & Science Academy, and Kings Leadership Academy Liverpool.
It was fantastic to visit inspirational teachers such as Kate Reynolds at Belvedere Academy, who has brilliantly implemented the RISE Up programme in both core PE and extra curricular enrichment to fit the needs of her young people.
You will be hearing a lot more about Kate’s super work in the coming months through a number of case studies.
It was so beneficial to visit Kings Leadership Academy Liverpool to see the work Louise Mansell and Polly Crawley have started with an outstanding leadership programme and exciting plans to re-engage some of their Year 8 children in PE using the RISE Up programme.
It was brilliant to chat to some of their outstanding young people and learn from their experiences. We spent some important time touring their local catchment area together to really try to develop an understanding of what life is like in a post Covid world for these young people we serve.
The LSSP Happy, Healthy & Active Children Practitioners Conference
On Wednesday we were at the Liverpool SSP conference, brilliantly organised by Vicky Marshall, Jimmy McGinn, Adella Dando and the amazing LSSP team.
There was an inspirational keynote from Dave McPartlin, Headteacher of the happiest school in Britain, Flakefleet Primary School who gave a fascinating #DaretoDream presentation.
Dave encourages his young people to dare to dream, then provides these dreams to trigger their social engagement system so that they love attending his school.
It was an incredible vision of what education can be, despite the current system.
Dave also talked honestly about the challenges senior leaders and front line teachers are facing at the moment.
We send our love and solidarity to all you awesome leaders and teachers at this incredibly challenging time in education.
Watch this awesome video to get a flavour of the incredible work Dave and his colleagues do:
Simon Scarborough, representing PE Scholar, delivered fantastic sessions on ‘Leading PE Effectively’ and ‘Preparing for a successful Ofsted Deep Dive.
We had some great presentations from Dr Avril Rowley and Ceri Anne Magill from LJMU, looking at the importance of outdoor learning for children’s development and Catriona Hudson on ‘Mastering Challenges and Skills for Life’.
With a national emergency around the mental health of adolescents, Neil led a session focused on an introduction to a trauma informed approach within a PE department, to transform short & long term outcomes for young people, based on his work at a secondary school in Norwich.
We looked at the powerful story of Ian Wright and his fantastic teacher, Mr Pigden, who intuitively implemented trauma informed practice to change the direction of Ian’s future.
Neil explained what a trauma informed approach is, gave an overview of the Adverse Childhood Experience Study and how this is currently impacting children in our schools at the moment.
We looked at the importance of emotionally available adults to provide the protective factors to break the cycle from Adverse Childhood Experiences to early death.
The session then explored how we can create psychological safety for our young people to trigger their social engagement system and enhance relationships across the school.
We then focused on how polyvagel theory and the 4 RISE categories of physical activities can be applied to widen our students' window of tolerance, and make our young people feel calmer, connected and loved, to transform their mental wellbeing.
Neil finished with his secret formula for a transformational teacher in a post Covid educational world, before delegates created a triple action plan that they could implement in their school the next day to take the first steps to transform outcomes.
It was an outstanding conference and we want to thank Vicky Marshall and the Liverpool SSP team for creating such a great event, full of fantastic delegates, and giving Future Action the opportunity to showcase our work.
The Liverpool RISE Up team coming together
On Thursday, we spent some time with Julie Taylor, the inspirational head of Belvedere Academy and Chris Price from School Improvement Liverpool, to understand more about the wider work going on across the city to implement trauma informed practice in Liverpool schools.
We finished off our visit with a team meeting with all our lead teachers from our pilot schools to refine our joint vision for the city, share best practice and plan our exciting launch event.
It was great to hear about the brilliant work Polly Johnson has led at The Academy of St Francis Assisi to engage some of her students, starting with an exciting first lesson around creating fruit smoothies.
There was a real buzz in the room as Liverpool's RISE Up community started to come together as a team. We aspire for this community of trauma informed PE practitioners to become bigger and bigger over the next few years and we will do all we can to support these brilliant teachers.
This pilot programme is at stage one of an exciting vision for Liverpool schools. You will be hearing a lot more about strategies that our superb pilot schools are using and how they are demonstrating the impact on their young people.
Imagine
As we were in the land of the Beatles, Neil could not go to Liverpool without visiting the Cavern Club on Wednesday evening. The club is a special place, and as Neil walked home that evening, his mind started to wander to a few ‘Imagines’ about education at the moment:
Imagine if brilliant senior leaders like Dave McPartlin were creating inspirational joyful schools because of the education system rather than despite it?
Imagine if all teaching staff felt supported and valued so that they could put their oxygen masks on first, and be able to look after our young people to the best of their ability?
Imagine if all frontline teachers were trained in trauma informed practice to help our children recover from the effects of Covid and break the cycle of adverse childhood experiences?
Imagine if trauma informed practice was the predominant system in the country, rather than the behaviorist model that is retraumatising our children at the moment and making children and their teachers miserable, when we least need this approach?
Imagine if we could make our children happier and how that would impact their outcomes?
These are all areas that we care passionately about here at Future Action and we make a commitment to do all we can to support educators across the world to make these ‘imagines’ a reality. Our great children and hero teachers deserve that.
Thank you Liverpool and all the brilliant people we met along the way for an unforgettable week. We are already looking forward to returning in June.
How can we help you?
The School Wellbeing Scorecard: A Path to Success
As educators, our ultimate goal is to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for our students. With the complimentary School Wellbeing Scorecard, we can help you take the first step towards achieving this goal.
The scorecard will assess your school in key areas including:
[1] Activities
[2] Habits
[3] Mental Fitness
[4] Whole School Impact
Based on your results, you'll receive a personalised report with practical tips to improve your school's wellbeing provision. The scorecard is just a click away - take it now to start your journey towards a better future for you and your students.
Unleash Your Potential with Our Range of Resources
We believe that everyone has the power to make a positive impact on their students' wellbeing. To help you do that, we've created a variety of resources designed to meet your needs and preferences.
Click here to try our complimentary online ‘RISE Up’ taster course.
From case studies to videos and brochures, our taster resources are available at your fingertips. Explore your options today and find the tools you need to transform your school.
Have a brilliant week and thank you for all your efforts this term. We hope you get a chance to rest, relax and have some fun adventures over Easter.
We hope you got value from today's blog. Get in touch if we can help you achieve your goals.
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