From speeches to councils to helping alpacas—Arc Oakbridge pupils are leading change thanks to the SuperKind Social Impact Award. See how they did it!
Why did you decide to sign up for the SuperKind Social Impact Schools Award?
I came accross SuperKind on Facebook and saw the impact it was having across a number of other schools. It seemed to me that lots of our pupils were already doing social action work but were not being recognised for it. I thought The Social Impact Schools Award would be an ideal way to embed social action across the whole school and recognise students who took social action.
How did you introduce the Award at your school?
We set staff up with an account and held a training session to ensure that everyone understood what this was about and how pupils could earn badges. Then, we held an assembly for pupils to make them aware of what SuperKind was all about. Pupils loved the idea and embraced what they could do to make positive impacts in the school and wider community.
What are some examples of social actions that the Award has led you to take?
One of our classes has written letters to the local MP and received responses. It was clear that this made them feel great about themselves and that they were valued and listened to. Another class sent letters to SLT in school to ask for changes to be made. We are currently in the process of arranging a fundraiser on SuperKind’s fundraising platform to support a local aplaca farm after a group of our pupils attended on a social group visit. Pupils were in awe of what the farm did and decided they wanted to help. One of our pupils did a speech for Solihull council about how EHCP’s need to be better. Pupils have raised lots of money for various charities by creating things for our Christmas Fair and holding smaller sales in school (such as making lemonade and cake sale).
Classes have been supporting the local community by collecting food for food banks and making fresh food to take to the local Salvation Army Hub.
We have incorporated peer mentoring across the school and our older pupils are supporting our younger ones with activities such as reading and cooking, where they demonstrate kindness and compassion..
Pupils sent Christmas cards to a local care home to link with the elderly, something we wish to build on in the future.
What difference has the SuperKind Social Impact Schools Award made to your students, particularly in reference to their Special Educational Needs?
It has massively improved self esteem and confidence, which is particularly important to us at Arc Oakbridge as pupils often arrive at the school with low self-esteem due to experiences and trauma from previous schools. Pupils’ improved confidence is reflected in their eagerness to make a difference not just in school but in the local community too. For many pupils, they would never have thought they could make an impact before starting The Social Impact Schools Award. The more they learn about changes that they can make, the more they want to take part.
We’ve also seen a remarkable change in the empathy that our pupils have shown. SEN pupils can find showing empathy particularly difficult, however many of our pupils have been able to develop their empathy with some of the SuperKind work that they have done.
For many pupils, they would never have thought they could make an impact before starting The Social Impact Schools Award...."
Do you have any tips for how other SEN schools might take part in the award/use SuperKind?
Embrace it and don’t have any preconceived notions about what your pupils can achieve. Our pupils surprise us every day with the barriers that they can break – letter writing was something they would not choose to do before this.
Keep things consistent. This, along with visual reminders, has been really good to keep the energy going in our school.
Be straight to the point of what SuperKind is and the impact it has.
