Blackpool Schools
Innovation Funds
School 'Resilience Committees' led audits to identify what could make the school more resilient, they co-produced an action plan and made a pitch to a panel to receive funding to put their ideas into action.
44 schools have been supported by innovation funding.
Primary schools often used funding to create self-soothing and calming spaces in the school. These spaces are used to work on wellbeing and resilience activities. The additional spaces also helped schools keep young people safe and distanced in the face of COVID-19.
Secondary schools often used funding to increase community engagement and developed projects like establishing peer ambassadors and creating volunteering roles.
The funds helped to improve safeguarding processes at school and helped schools to make better connections with community health and wellbeing services.
SEND schools used their Innovation Fund to further train school staff in specific sensory skills to improve communication with and between pupils; empowering their voices and improving their social and developmental skills.
BASICS
with new play and hobbies equipment in the school
BELONGING
in a new parents’ engagement room
LEARNING
in new outdoor reading space
COPING
in new sensory spaces
CORE SELF
in the school ‘Wonderwall’ for everyone to feel inspired and motivated
Academic Resilience Approach
Blackpool schools have started their Academic Resilience Approach (ARA) work. This approach, based on the work of Professor Angie Hart and Resilient Therapy, aims to build resilience across the whole school community through the use of Resilient Moves. Each 'Move' is underpinned by the Noble Truths is also supported by a wealth of research showing the benefits to mental health, academic attainment, staff wellbeing and parental engagement.
Read about the benefits for staff here:
DRP report final MAY 2019_JM_V2 (brighton.ac.uk)
Find out more about the benefits here.
Why have a Resilience Committee?
Resilience Committees are groups of young people carefully selected to co-produce inclusive projects in schools. They are young people who are given a voice, time, resources and permission to make a positive change for all of their school community. Resilience Committees improve confidence, independence, engagement and have shown to have a positive correlation with attainment and mental health. So, why not?
Use the steps below to get started with, or continue, your Academic Resilience Approach.
Attend Training
We have many open access training events run by Boing Boing CIC and can often deliver bespoke sessions in Resilient Therapy and ARA.
Audit the whole school community
Audit your whole staff body, parents, carers and young people. Links to audits are below.
Create your action plan based on the outcomes of your audits
The outcome of the audits will show you the areas that need to be developed.
Work co-productively to make improvements
Engage your Resilience Committee and Community of Practice to find some solutions. Test and Learn!
Resilience Revolution Education Voices (RREV)
Our co-production group consists of parents, carers, young people, professionals and academics. We work together to make Blackpool more inclusive!
To get involved please contact: coproduction@blackpool.gov.uk
See our Trust Document
A co-produced guide to supporting young people to return to school post Covid-19
Blackpool Classrooms That Communicate
HeadStart funded a project to create a speech and language toolkit to be shared with all schools in Blackpool.
Click on the image to explore the advice and downloadable resources for free!
Covid-19 School and College Survey Report.pdfchris re research programme.mp4A group of co-researchers from the Resilience Revolution completed research that gave young people a voice, to share their thoughts and feelings about returning to school or college, and what they feel would help them to return to education happy, healthy and ready to learn after Covid-19 lockdowns.
"As young people we decided it is not just adults that can do research; we have played a key role in making this research happen as we wanted to give young people a voice too."
This report shows what 129 young people in Blackpool said and makes young person led recommendations for teachers, leaders and decision makers.
Click on the video link to hear from Chris about his experience of co-research and hear his tips for future research activity.
Academic Resilience Approach
Co-Production + Community of Practice
Blackpool Beating Bullying
We want your school to be the next school to achieve our Charter Mark. Here is how your school can apply to join the adventure of the UK’s FIRST co-produced Charter Mark. See how many schools have been successful so far!
You can also support us across social media platforms by using our hashtag #BlackpoolBeatingBullying. Let’s make Blackpool a better place for all!
Pyramid of Need
The Pyramid of Need ensures that no child in your school is left behind. By assigning a 'points system' to the key areas of need for your school community you can identify which young people would benefit from a whole school approach of ARA and which need a little, or a lot, more support. This makes sure that even children who may not have been targeted for mental health and wellbeing support previously are now having their needs met.