We owe our forgotten children the chance of a brighter future
OUR YOUNG people need character now more than ever. Suddenly the country they live in is in crisis, jobs disappearing, tempers fraying and social cohesion at its worst. Not since the war have we so needed young people with the necessary grit, determination and resilience to get up and get on, to rise to the challenge.
This most applies to the youngsters whose lives have already been tough, who perhaps have strayed already into petty crime or worse, who see no future for themselves. These youths are no less talented than their middle-class peers, no less willing or able to attend school, behave well, pass their exams, get a job and succeed in life.
Yet they are so lacking in confidence and self-esteem, they are the new “left behind”, and their wasted talent costs us £30billion a year.The ages from 13 to 15 are when so many white working-class boys struggle to achieve and fall into the depths of deprived crime. But they have little opportunity to develop their character.
Let us not underestimate the problem. In areas of the country where I have worked there are gangs that set up evening hunts of a randomly selected victim which end in a savage knife murder. Little children are used by County Lines to deliver drugs at gunpoint.
There is a solution, and this Government committed in its manifesto to address the issue with a £500million Youth Investment Fund.
IT IS essential that we use this fund to include the 50 Red Wall constituencies won by the Conservatives from Labour at the last election to lift the aspirations of their young people. They are the fruits of a generation that could lead the country out of its doldrums.
There is no shortage of character-developing opportunity that could engage these young people. Organisations such as the Prince’s Trust, Duke of Edinburgh Award, National Citizen Service, Tall Ships Youth Trust, Scouts and similar are mostly under-recruited.
What is missing is the capacity of local support services, especially schools, to coordinate and motivate their students into worthwhile programmes outside school (especially in holidays and half-terms) to develop a vulnerable child into a confident, aspirational adult.
Schools have been far too focused on academic education: now that Ofsted has approved a Personal Development Plan for every child, there can be much more extra-curricular provision.
But some of this, especially trips and expeditions, can seem risky or expensive. Teachers need to be supported, encouraged, trained (and paid) to take their own trips and journeys and then find the resources they need. They need a back-up system to help them source opportunity and engage pupils in a way that delivers more energy inside the classroom as a benefit to academic success.The two go hand-in-hand. Above all, mentors and role models need to be recruited to instil a sense of ambition and pride, out of which all other attributes flow.
This is not about certain schemes working in certain areas but a single national access system that consolidates effective opportunity and delivers it where it is most needed.
At the Challenger Trust we have been piloting with success in Gateshead, Birmingham, Southend, Reading and Bedford. Working with cohorts of 5,000 children, we have enabled access for the “have-nots” to opportunities they have never dreamt of.
A boy from Southend who was not even attending school went to the Himalayas (at a cost of less than £500) and only months later sat his GCSEs. A group of behaviourally challenged youngsters from the Birmingham Pupil Referral Unit travelled to Auschwitz to experience a culture shock that changed their lives. One hundred Bangladeshi Muslims in one of the country’s knife crime hotspots did a bushcraft camp for under £10 a head. A group from the same community went sail training in Scotland.
WE organised a ski trip with our academies in Bedford and Southend for less than £500. It double the motivation and self-esteem of the pupils in a week. In our Youth Character Partnerships, we expect to see support from all local agencies, private schools, local business (for employability training) and local authorities, local philanthropists, and we find all are willing to engage.
We want to do this in every corner of the nation. So please join our Campaign for Character and help to engage the nation’s youth at this time of national crisis.
‘Teachers need to be supported, encouraged, trained and paid’