“We rise by lifting others.” ~ Robert Ingersoll

This simple quote and guiding principle has underpinned all developments I’ve led since joining UFA a year ago. It is what led me to wanting to join the organisation following the leadership positions I’d enjoyed so much in previous roles and which I continue to believe passionately in as so important to improving the quality of life for those most vulnerable in society. It is also something I fundamentally believe.

I am just about to complete my first year as CEO, and as they say, time flies when you’re having fun! I’d be lying if I said that every moment of the last year has been fun. Organisational change can be demanding on yourself and those around you. The impact of restructures on colleagues, the psychological loss that can be felt and the period of uncertainly felt during the time waiting for the new CEO to start can all take a personal and professional toll on everyone. However, like any Chief Executive leading change for the benefit of the organisation and its beneficiaries, I recognise during the challenging times that the most enduring and meaningful impact often means discomfort. In the short to medium term at least.

With the right team and a commitment to a vision for positive change anything is possible! And we have such a great combination here at UFA.

UFA’s vision is a big one. A world where all young people flourish. We truly believe in the power of linking school, home and communities. A longstanding point we’ve made is that this is important because between birth and the age of 16 a child only spends 15% of their time in school. We have made massive strides to ensure that the remaining 85% of a child’s time and the potential for learning in homes and community settings that this brings is fully optimised!

And the exciting news is, this is just the start! UFA – with our established reputation and visionary thinking – is well positioned to develop our existing range of programmes and adapt them, linking with partner organisations as required, to ensure our offer is as responsive as possible to the emerging needs of children and young people of our generation at any given time. After all, the beneficial impact of a commitment to whole education, student leadership and compassion in schools is timeless.

I am so thankful to the trustees at UFA and my great colleagues that have supported me and taken my ideas on board since I joined UFA. Also, I am particularly thankful to the children and young people we work with at UFA for the things we learn from them every day – about our successes as well as where we can improve in the future.

I continue to encourage a culture of reflection and transparency, where we are honest with ourselves about areas for improvement and prepared to take feedback on board. After all, we can only develop our potential leaders of the future by modelling good practice ourselves as an organisation in the way we offer opportunities and respond to challenges.

That means, for example, demonstrating resilience in a tough external climate that espouses valuing improving outcomes for children and young people but doesn’t always reflect this in policy decisions or levels of investment. However, the story at UFA is a very inspiring one that I plan to make even clearer to decision-makers to show how such approaches are successful to improve the infamous basket of outcomes we so often hear about.

In the truest sense it is clear from the impact of the last year since I joined UFA that we have led by example with the ethos and principles that led UFA to come into existence over 20 years ago.

That is, overall, to unlock the opportunity for every child to succeed and flourish, particularly those who face additional challenges. We continue to transform learning through leadership – with the science of learning, the art of teaching and the ethos of youth work. By the end of this financial year we will have worked with over 4000 young people and 200 schools through our National Citizen Service (NCS), provision our school improvement programmes and our private tuition company, Top Tutors. I am really proud of this achievement and our amazing staff who made this happen.

As an organisation, however, we must not be complacent. As we constantly remind the children and young people accessing the wide variety of programmes we offer, we need to adapt and be resilient – and this is important for us as an organisation too. I look forward to continuing in the privilege of leading the remarkable organisation that is UFA and the further impact we will have shown, with the support of research partners, over the coming year. I look forward to sharing interim progress with you through future blogs as well as other key reports that will be made available through our website at ufa.org.uk

We spent the afternoon with 14 young people from Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy in Birtley discussing what makes effective learning. My guess is this doesn’t happen too often and it was a real privilege to observe. Young people explaining to school leaders, governors and partner schools what effective learning looks like, particularly as their position on this topic was grounded on findings from an academic research project.

As part of their research the group visited the XP School in Doncaster to seek the views of students from outside of their school, it also provided an opportunity to broaden their perspective by investigating effective learning in another setting.

The eloquent and enthusiastic group provided evidence to support their views as well as coming up with recommendations as to what changes needed to be made in order to enhance effective learning within their school.

The main findings from the two “squads” of researchers was that pupils learned most effectively:

– when they had an opportunity to discuss their learning with others

– when they undertook practical work

– when they approached learning in a wide range of ways

– when teachers used a variety of teaching approaches and plenty of practical work

– when teachers used praise and specific feedback

These responses matched well with what had already been investigated by a working party of teachers in the school. The authentic young people’s views are now feeding into the development of teaching and learning policy and practice at the school.

These findings came about as the result of the group taking part in the UFA Young Researchers and Evaluators programme, as part of this programme they received three days of training which looked at:

• The development of a research question
• The language of research and evaluation
• The ethics of evaluation
• Presentation and communication skills
• Critique and coaching

The training provided the group with the confidence to take part in a meaningful discussion about learning. However in order for the training to have real value the senior leadership team of Lord Lawson of Beamish had to give their backing to ensure this was an authentic leadership opportunity. Something which we at UFA consider to be vital as in our view genuine leadership opportunities can enhance and magnify learning.

Mark Lovatt Principal of Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy said of the experience:

“Working with UFA on the Young Researchers and Evaluators programme has been an exciting and innovative project for the young people and the school to be part of,”

“At Lord Lawson we’re committed to developing student voice and this project has been a great way of the young people involved researching with their peers what makes a positive, effective learning environment and what their role is in their own learning.

“We are looking forward to working with them to look at how we take those findings and action them in the school.”

Alex Rayner, Vice Principal who co-ordinated the programme in school:

“This has been a great programme to be part of because the results and insights it brings come directly from the students at the school, sharing open and honest views with staff and their peers,”

“It is student voice in action which has been a real eye opener for me and depending on the findings could change the way school delivers teaching.

“Plus the programme demonstrates how the Young Researcher and Evaluator programme can impact on young people’s engagement, learning and character development as well as being a valuable opportunity for staff development.”

Catriona Viede, Assistant Principal with responsibility for teaching and learning offered encouragement and support throughout the training which meant the young people knew their work had real kudos across the school.

The schools approach is definitely towards the very top of Harts Ladder of Participation, something we at UFA are always keen to support.

The group have now presented their findings to the Senior Leadership Team, Governors and will share their judgements with peers shortly. Giving young people the opportunity to shape their education is surely the best way to engage them in the joy of learning.

With the New Year well and truly underway, most of us are now back at work or school, with the celebrations and festivities now a distant (and hopefully fond memory).

One of the first questions of 2017 I was asked was ‘Have you made any New Year’s resolutions?’ Making New Year’s resolutions is a debate I have with myself every year. It’s cold, it’s dark, most of us are feeling the effects physically, emotionally and financially of the celebrations. It’s not really the best time to review your life is it?

A well documented phenomena, best demonstrated in gym and slimming club membership, is the speed at which the initial flurry of good intentions reflected in New Year’s resolutions collapses under the weight of failure within the first few weeks or months.

We set ourselves huge goals, then disheartened by the ability to lose that two stone in a month or develop a six pack in three sessions and unwilling to put in what seems like a mountain of hard work, we give up, only to face the same challenge next January.

My perspective on New Year’s resolutions changed when I started reading ‘Black Box Thinking’ by Matthew Syed, a former table tennis champion and sports journalist. The title is inspired by the aviation industry and it’s openness to learning through failure to make improvements

One of the ideas he explores in the book is marginal gains, making small incremental changes to improve performance, which added together as a whole to make a significant change. He gives some great examples here https://goo.gl/agGRkC including the inspirational example of the British Cycling Team.

In the same article he also makes reference to Carol Dweck’s work on Mindset (read more here https://goo.gl/j0vDWq) which forms a key part of UFA’s work with young people. Dweck believes that having a fixed Mindset (I will diet every day and if I fall off the wagon I will have failed) doesn’t allow for learning or flexibility. Whereas growth Mindset (I will plan to lose weight but will not beat myself up if I have a couple of off days) allows that learning opportunity to explore why something didn’t work and to learn from it.

It’s a powerful combination to use in the workplace, in education and in day to day life. Set ambitious goals, but plan the incremental changes that it will take to get there. Make time to reflect and review at regular intervals and use those learnings to inform the process moving forward.

So in 2017 I won’t be making New Year’s resolutions, but I will be combining some small incremental changes along with a growth Mindset to improve my health through drinking more water, hitting my step goal on the Fitbit and not eating my body weight in cheese (a Christmas downfall).

I recognise that I won’t stay on track every day but I’ll be reviewing and refining my targets throughout the year and hopefully incorporating some more goals and the steps to get there along the way.

For those of you making New Year’s resolutions, let us know what they are and what small steps you’ll be taking to get those marginal gains.

Take every opportunity, you never know who you will meet along the way and where it will lead you!

Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in. – Unknown

Dave Coyle, Project Manager NCS Suffolk

Being able to value and love themselves for their unique contribution to the world

Gratitude – being able to count their blessings add see their own lives in perspective with the many less fortunate

The ability to reflect and recover from difficult experiences

Lula Garner National Development Manager

Worthiness- They are most definitely worth it!! I would want them to feel it and believe it.

Respect- How it makes you feel, why it’s important!

A hug……sometimes that’s all you need

Tracey Finnimore Business Manager Top Tutors

A sense of adventure, the confidence to take the first step and the knowledge you have people to support you if it all goes wrong and to cheer you on if it goes well.

Jenni Fryer UFA

Self-belief.

A passion for something – something that they love to do or be involved in. Found by having lots of different opportunities in life.

At least one significant adult in their life who loves them unconditionally.

Jan Polack, National Development Manager

Positivity: Not matter how tough the situation is, how hard your life is .. Just be positive and rock it!

Nidhi Bains, Top Tutors

The confidence to try new things (Stay away from home, activities etc.).
Persistence (To not give up at the first hurdle).
Optimism (The belief that things will work out).

Carl Lofty, NCS

I’d give them the experience of unconditional positive regard. Something that all children and young adults should have but something which is too often missing for many of them.

Louise Farrell, NCS

The confidence to be themselves (it’s OK to be me).
A sense of hope and optimism for the future.
Drive and ambition to realise their dreams.

Manjit Shellis Director of Learning

Patience.

Alex Stoenciu, UFA

Not being a sheep.

Rav Bilkhu, NCS

Resilience – the key, as with many things, is to pay attention to the process to try to be reflective and learn about how to cultivate resilience amidst the challenge that requires it.

Sarah Burgess, Director of Learning

Hard work – it makes everything more achievable and maximises all your other characteristics and attributes.

Richard Shaw, Head of NCS

The knowledge that you get back what you put in….in work, relationships and life.

Paul Evans, CEO

Tell us what you think – what would the perfect Christmas gift be?

If you know me, you’ll know that music plays a really important part in my life. I play with a local amateur orchestra and recently we tried out a new conductor.

The experience of a different style of leadership had a dramatic effect on the band.

The new guy was knowledgeable, experienced and musical but his style was dictatorial, quite critical and to be honest, a bit demeaning.

And what was the reaction of the players? We became sullen, uncommunicative and resistant to what he wanted. It was difficult to cut through the style of leadership to discover his vision for the music underneath. There were mutterings between players, frustration within sections and some sarcastic comments back to the conductor in rehearsals. What had happened to my fellow musicians?

The atmosphere within the group was uncomfortable and generally a lot of people were not happy with the situation.

The concert came and went and then it was time to start rehearsing for the next one.

Fortunately have been working with our old conductor again. In anticipation I certainly put in more practice than usual and when the rehearsals started it was great – people played really well, appreciated each other and there was a lot of laughter and enjoyment.

So what made the difference? We are very familiar with this guy but it is his leadership I think that has the greatest influence. Obviously working for UFA I was wondering if I could match what he does in action against our 9 Leadership Characteristics?

1. Resilient – he doesn’t give up, he tries things and finds better ways to communicate what he wants to get the results from the band.
2. Curious – he always does his homework on the music before the rehearsal period starts and often shares what he has found out about the circumstances around the writing of the music.
3. Resourceful – he is creative in his way of describing what he wants from the music, by using metaphor, phrases and different gestures and movements. My favourite by a long shot is seeing him gallop across the church hall to indicate bouncy and driving pace!
4. Optimistic – not always! But he will model optimistic thinking by not criticising when the violins or clarinets don’t play a passage in tune, he will encourage “a bit of private practice at home before next rehearsal”.
5. Reflective – this aspect has developed over the years and he sometimes records rehearsals and concerts and reviews them in between times learning from reflecting on how he has led.
6. Responsible – he is never late and has, in nearly 14 years, missed only one rehearsal! He is always well prepared.
7. Ethical – I often talk to him in the break as we both disappear outside the hall for a nicotine break. He never gossips about players or puts people down. He’s quite good at name dropping though!
8. Confident – he is pretty confident in himself – conductors need this or at least pretend to be like this. Players can smell fear! He has got better at self-depreciation over the years which has helped people to respect him more.
9. Respectful – this is probably at the heart of why our orchestra plays so well for this conductor. We’re an amateur group made up of a wide range of people aged 20-75 and with a wide range of backgrounds and jobs. What unites us is wanting to make great music together. Our conductor respects us for that and helps us make it as good as it can be.

So, even though we know our esteemed Maestro needs to move to bigger and better things (including conducting the London Philharmonic last week) we are reluctant to let him go unless we can find another skilled and inspirational leader!

As you may already know, a HUGE part of NCS (National Citizen Service) is about young people giving back to and taking an active role in their local community – so our UFA NCS teams up and down the country are taking inspiration from the thousands of young people we work with each year and are practicing what we preach by doing their part for International Volunteer Day this year.

Team Northants

Our Northants team have been collecting donations of food, bedding and toys over the last month for Animals in Need UK and will be spending the day with them too.

Animals In Need was set up in 1990, the aim of the organisation is to alleviate suffering in animals. They are dedicated to rescuing sick, injured, trapped and distressed wild and domestic animals. The team provide veterinary treatment where necessary, care for and rehabilitate animals until they can be released or re-homed. The organization is run solely by volunteers, attending animal casualties in the Northamptonshire area.

Team Milton Keynes

Our Milton Keynes Team are spending the morning helping Open Door and the afternoon wrapping presents for Harry’s Rainbow.

Open Door was set up in 1987 to provide housing solutions and support for single homeless people. Over the years they’ve set up 2 hostels (now run by Orbit Heart Housing Association), a Deposit Guarantee Scheme (run by MK Council as Homebond) and 2 Drop Ins in Conniburrow and Bletchley.

Odette and Lee Mould had the perfect family; two gorgeous children, twins, Jessica and Harry. Harry died unexpectedly in March 2009 leaving a great void in their lives. The family found it very difficult to get the bereavement help and support they needed, especially for Jessica, a five and half year old who had lost her twin brother, there wasn’t really anywhere locally that we could turn to.

In October 2011, Harry’s legacy, “Harry’s Rainbow” was born. Harry’s Rainbow is committed to supporting bereaved children and their families in the Milton Keynes and surrounding areas.

Team UFA NCS HQ (Birmingham)

Our HQ team are spending their day with SIFA Fireside.

SIFA Fireside works five days a week with some of the most vulnerable adults in our society: those experiencing homelessness or who are vulnerably-housed. Many of the people they work with are affected by alcohol, facing mental and physical health problems or otherwise socially excluded. They run a daily Drop-In service where, on average, they provide 1031 breakfasts, 2009 lunches and 429 showers each month for their clients.

Team Durham

Our Durham team are spending the day with If U Care Share.

“Our aim is to prevent anyone feeling the pain we felt as a family when we lost Daniel. We truly believe that talking can save lives”. Shirley Smith (Founder & Daniel’s Mother).

Daniel O’Hare was 19 years of age when, without any warning, he took his own life. He had no previous history of mental health problems nor had he shown any outward signs of his intentions. Daniel’s brothers Matthew and Ben, along with his cousin Sarah (then aged 10, 5 and 13) hoped to do something positive to try and prevent another family suffering a similar experience. They wanted to create a lasting memory to Daniel and started If U Care Share.

Team Suffolk

Our Suffolk team are helping Community Action Suffolk and Suffolk Saxons turn Ipswich Corn Exchange into a badminton venue fit for 500 Spectators!

Community Action Suffolk supports organisations in Suffolk’s Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector, to enable them to operate more effectively.They provide a voice for individuals and groups who may not otherwise be heard and represent their interests to the public sector. They do this through specialist networks and the Suffolk Congress.

One question that I’ve been asked throughout my first couple of weeks is what attracted me to the role of CEO at UFA? The answer is simple – the opportunity to work with an organisation that has a rich 20 year, evidence based history in supporting young people in realising their own potential.

At my previous organisation Street League, I was lucky enough to see hundreds of young unemployed people realise their potential through engagement with sport, education and employability skills, in the majority of cases leading to sustained employment.

At UFA the opportunity to help young people engage with their learning, grow their confidence and to develop their voice, learning and resilience starts much earlier. We want to support children and young people to develop skills and competencies that ensure they are less likely to become unemployed in the first place and more able to play active, fulfilling roles in their communities. And at the same time supporting those adults around them to become skilled and confident in engaging with the young people.

Just in the last week I’ve talked to our national development team about projects working with looked after children to train them as peer tutors (read part 1 here and part 2 here) along with clusters of schools working together through our Young Researcher and Evaluator programme to explore young people’s voice within the learning environment.

Through Top Tutors, UFA’s subsidiary company and social business, we help young people on a daily basis with one to one tuition support and are now rolling out a pilot to support parents in helping their teenagers to learn (details here) . With a planned role out across Birmingham in addition to a well-established presence in London and a great entry into the Good Schools Guide (read more here) it’s an exciting time for Top Tutors!

Last week also saw the annual National Citizen Service (NCS) conference and all of the staff who attended came back enthused and motivated by the celebration of just what an effect our UFA powered NCS programme has had on young people. By the end of 2016 we will have worked with 10,000 young people since the programme launched four years ago!

Our trustees saw first-hand the impact UFA’s work through NCS has on young people through a series of videos from our teams in Suffolk (watch them here). It was inspirational to see how much change a group of young people can deliver in the community through social impact programmes but also see in themselves in just a few weeks. 

The theme that shared throughout all these diverse and exciting projects is the opportunity for young people to seize the initiative, to step forward and to step up to a challenge, whether it’s a learning or personal goal they are aiming for.

At the heart of UFA is ‘progression’. Young people throughout all of our programmes are encouraged to continuously grow, develop and progress, whether that be in learning, personal skills or into further opportunities inside or out of UFA. Every young person at UFA finishes at a completely different place to where they started.  We see a young person in terms of what they can become, not where they are now.

There are challenges moving forward around growing our work in a tough funding climate and increasing the numbers of young people, families, teachers and communities we work with. We are particularly good at monitoring and evaluation, often working with partners such as the Institute of Education to help us but we want to go much further being able to demonstrate the impact of our programmes. This is essential and will form a significant part of our strategy moving forward.  I am looking forward to tackling the challenges we face head on, as based on these first few weeks, there will be plenty of inspiration to draw on moving forward.

The Lead Peer Tutors ably led an Open Evening to persuade and inform invitees from across the county to sign up for the programme: all those who attended signed up, despite exhibiting a range of shyness, disengaged/rude behaviour, very low confidence and disbelief in their own suitability for the role. They were persuaded by the effusiveness of the Lead Peer Tutors in their praise of the impact of the programme on their:

• Confidence and understanding of their strengths
• Social skills and ability to work as part of a team
• Engagement and progress in the subjects they chose to Tutor younger peers in
• Sense of place in the world and the positive contribution they could make
• Awareness of their own choices in behaviour
• Ability to make a positive difference to others
• Pride in seeing progress made by their tutees
• Relationships with staff involved in supporting them
• Leadership skills including communication, public speaking, planning, organisation of time and resources, leading others.

Here’s the data demonstrating that change across the cohort pulled from our evaluation questionnaires:

• Resilience up 28%
• Resourcefulness up 41%
• Reciprocity up 16%
• Individual improvement ranged from 20-80%

Bearing in mind these Lead Peer Tutors first met the UFA in January this year and exhibited the exact same range of avoidant tactics (and were able to say so to the fresh recruits!) Oh how I love it when I don’t have to be the one standing up there trying to convince recalcitrant young people of their innate wonderfulness that’s buried under layers of armour! When I can ‘Blue Peter’ style say – “here’s one I made earlier”.
They ran the two-day training for the new cohort, with my support and that of the Virtual School team, at a residential over the October half term holiday. Their presence and confidence was a remarkable sight to behold; they received coaching feedback well and improved over the two days in their ability to manage their own and their delegates’ variation in energy and focus. Evaluation surveys from the new Peer Tutors reveal how well the training worked for them:

• 80% say they really believe the training has made them a better learner
• 75% say it taught them how to be more organised to get things done
• 60% say it improved their confidence to communicate their ideas to others
• 60% say it improved their ability to set goals and make plans

“I have learnt that I am more confident than I think and that I shouldn’t doubt myself so much as I can come up with good ideas when I focus and put my mind to it.” Y9 Peer Tutor

“I have learnt from the training I shouldn’t give up on myself” Y10 Peer Tutor

One of the key ESO’s, Stephanie Smith, told us this about what she’s experienced:

I volunteered to support the first cohort of young people with little knowledge of what impact Pere Tutoring would have. I have watched a group of young people grow in confidence and resilience. I have seen the bond grow stronger each time they have come together; I have glowed with pride at their individual and group achievements.
As we enter into a new journey with a second cohort, the shy quiet unregulated young people who sat in front of us last year are now articulate, confident and enthusiastic, standing in front of this year’s candidates. I find myself looking on in wonder at the change that UFA has encouraged and nurtured in our young people. I am proud to be a part of such a wonderful project.

Key in this intervention was gathering a multi-faceted team of people to keep the wagons rolling; Sara Giddens, Virtual School Creative Mentor kept the wheels oiled throughout:

It is perhaps obvious to say – but it is the collaboration, this way of partnership working that is so special and marked. What I find so significant – is that we are working to everyone’s strengths to support and facilitate the young people to reach their potential. This has been my most moving and significant work of the year! VERY hard and intense work … but SO, SO rewarding.

This is what I love about the UFA approach – we aim to develop EVERYONE we work with, no matter their age or starting point; we want to leave people and organisations better than when we arrived; clearer about their purpose and their ability to reach it; stronger in their assessment of where they are, what they’ve achieved and where they want to go next. Now that’s progress I buy into!
“The most important thing I have learnt from Peer Tutoring is that if you work as a team you can accomplish a lot.” Y10 Peer Tutor

Amid much talk about progress, how to assess it, how to maximise it, how to close the gaps I make sense of this hydra through the individual journeys I witness and contribute to through raising their confidence in themselves to progress beyond their (initially) limiting beliefs.

In February I wrote about a cohort of ‘looked after’ children I was privileged to work with in Derbyshire, whom I supported to become Peer Tutors. They’ve been beavering away supporting their peers in school on a one to one basis with dedicated school staff and a Virtual School Mentor alongside to help them overcome internal and external barriers along the way. Here’s what one of them wrote recently:

Ever since I became part of the UFA I have become a confident and bright person, in and out of school. Being part of the UFA has definitely been the best experience of my life. I have met lifelong friends and we are all like one big UFA family. I have enjoyed teaching at my school and having someone look at me as their role model. What challenged me the most at the start was my confidence in, not only myself, but others around me, but everyone was and is so nice to me.

Her Education Support Officer agrees:

I am AMAZED at how confident she has become….this has helped her become more sociable by speaking to new people, and has become less dependent on her friends, which is just fantastic. She wants to go for Head Girl when she goes into Year 10, which is a huge step forward as she would never have thought about doing something this like before. The UFA mentoring programme has definitely been a huge contributing factor to her growing confidence and self-esteem, and it is so wonderful to see in her.

One of our cohort had significant behavioural challenges (if I’d had T’s history I reckon I’d be so angry and hurt I wouldn’t know how to channel it either); here’s his report card on the experience now:

I’ve changed. My confidence has built up. My communication skills have developed. I made great new friends. You have to adapt to different people and I’ve been able to calm others down, calm people who have a temper. It’s made me a better person. My relationship with the head of year became stronger, it made me realise that I can cope with things that I didn’t think I could.

His assessment is backed up by the Virtual School Mentor and his Head of Year:

Never underestimate the power of a young person mentoring another young person. At times, throughout T’s mentoring – he was the only person that could get through to his mentee. He was the only person that could calm him down and get him back into lesson. It seems that T recognized his own behaviour through the mirror of R’s and was able to reach R when staff could not. His Head of Year is clear that the mentoring has given him and T a vehicle to talk about T’s issues vicariously (through reflecting upon his work with his mentee). The frequency of SLT call-outs to him, regarding his disruptive behaviour also fell.

Without exception the project has enabled relationships between our Peer Tutors and key school staff to deepen – so vital for the socialisation of these young people whose concept of relating has been so fractured. I have been moved by them all describing our project as a UFA family – it’s not a new reflection to hear  from young people I work with but from these young people it’s a very special and honourable mention.

Peer Tutoring has inevitably impacted on their academic attainment: “having to teach Maths to his mentee has  increased T’s confidence in Maths and rapidly shifted his behaviour in class so that he stayed in and was much more responsive to the lesson”; “B said she felt it had helped her progress in history as it had made her feel more confident in her abilities and enabled her to think in more depth about historical skills as she had had to simplify these to teach them to her mentees.”

And of course they have impacted in turn on their peers’ academic progress: “the effectiveness of B’s mentoring has enabled both boys to progress as neither of them had achieved their target grades in previous assessments.” There’s that double whammy benefit that investing in Peer Tutoring gets you!

Frankly I am delighted and bowled over by the profound shift I’ve witnessed in these courageous and inspiring young people as a result of becoming a UFA Peer Tutor. I know, and they know, that their lives will be different now, and for the better, because the experience has radically and systemically changed their beliefs about themselves which has opened their minds and hearts to more of themselves. They now know they are capable of far more than they originally thought possible, and that with a team of friends and family around them they truly can aim for the stars.

This has made my confidence bigger; it pushes you to become a bigger person and believe in yourself. If Peer Tutoring were a kind of weather it would be the sun because everybody shines bright in their own way.

Work as part of our UFA National Citizen Service programme over the last four years has seen more than 10,000 young people undertake more than 3 million hours of social action in their communities. Once again these hours needed organisation and a structure to ensure any resulting social action is of high quality and makes a real difference. We can only imagine what the long term impact of these hours will be.

We can also agree that volunteering is a good thing but it has the greatest impact when it’s well thought-out and planned, making sure volunteer effort is put to best use.

Schools have a rich history of using volunteers to add value to school life, helping with reading, outings etc. Weekly swimming lessons for my children were only possible if the school had three helpers and self-managed negotiations at the school gate if you weren’t able to attend could be interesting!  Therefore my volunteering experience was a little adhoc, turning up when you could, not ideal for the school or those volunteering.

Over recent weeks I’ve been looking at a planning structure for volunteering in schools with a particular focus on volunteer led learning/tutoring.  With support from Nesta and the Cabinet Office UFA has developed a school led approach to make the most of volunteer tutors.

Our Volunteer Led Learning Toolkit contains a number of resources which aim to help schools to plan and organise the effective deployment of their volunteer tutors. Click below to check out the tools.

https://ufa.org.uk/download-our-free-volunteer-led-learning-toolkit/

These tools include a training programme for volunteers, seen here in action at North Huddersfield Trust School.

Whilst volunteers are an additional resource who can help to raise aspiration, improve attainment and support personal development, volunteers tell me that they get lots out of their involvement too. Volunteers at NHTS have had an impact on students’ grades and aspirations as well as helping students on their next steps to either college or apprenticeships. But it has also provided volunteers with a sense of satisfaction that they have helped their tutees fulfil their potential.

Private tuition for children from middle and high income backgrounds is growing rapidly, but this can be out of reach for many pupils. I hope our Volunteer Led learning Toolkit will encourage schools to mobilise all those potential volunteers within their community to help support pupils from all backgrounds to reach their potential. Download it and please let us know what you think – we’d love to hear your feedback.

Volunteering is at the very core of being a human. No one has made it through life without someone else’s help.

Heather French Henry