Class Teacher & RE lead, Phil Taylor, tells us of St Andrews students’ amazing work towards The Social Impact Schools Award & the positive contribution it has had in their recent SIAMS inspection.
Why did you decide to sign up for the SuperKind Social Impact Schools Award?
As a Church of England school, we are always looking for ways to promote Courageous Advocacy and go beyond the cake sale. We’ve been fortunate to attend various Courageous Advocacy training sessions but what stood out about SuperKind was the framework that SuperKind provides to open students’ eyes to all the different ways that they can affect change. We really valued SuperKind’s emphasis on introducing students to all different types of action. We want our students to feel they have the tools they need to think critically about how they might be able to respond to a problem they care about.
How did you introduce the Award at your school?
We launched the award in a staff meeting and all staff were on board straight away. We then launched it to pupils in an assembly in which we gave an overview of all the different types of action on SuperKind – from writing letters, to making posters, or even volunteering their time. We wanted to create a culture where students felt compelled and supported to take action for things that they cared about. And above all, we wanted the social actions that we take to be led by pupils rather than staff.
What is an example of a social action that the Award has inspired pupils to take?
Most recently one of our worship groups led on a pyjama drive within the school. They’d learned about a local initiative collecting pyjamas for children at Christmas and been compelled to join in. Knowing (through SuperKind!) that there were so many ways they could support the initiative beyond just donating pyjamas, they took complete ownership in spreading the message as far and wide as possible – they made posters about the initiative and stood up in assembly to rally pupils together to help them. Collectively the pupils were able to collect 55 pairs of pyjamas so that 55 children could wake up on Christmas morning with new pyjamas.
There’s no doubt that the drive was so powerful because it was pupil led and truly resonated with our community by having such a tangible impact on people in our local area. The children’s sense of pride at what they had achieved through this drive was unparalleled to when they take part in teacher-led initiatives.
What changes have you observed within the school since taking part in the Award?
Our pupils have become more confident in talking about issues and voicing their desire to enact change. Pupils are empowered to approach teachers with big problems and ask for support in affecting change… and staff have enjoyed going on the journey with pupils too!
Pupils are motivated not only intrinsically but also by the concept of achieving a badge on SuperKind. As a teacher, it has been really powerful to be able to stand up in assembly and tell pupils how many/what actions we have done.
We’ve also found that the process of logging actions offers a nice space for reflection. Pupils will come to staff to tell them what they have been up to and ask for their action to be logged on SuperKind – giving staff an opportunity to have a conversation about what they did, what they learnt, and celebrate their impact.
How did the social action that you are doing/your work with SuperKind help with your SIAMS inspection?
The work that we have done through The Social Impact Schools Award formed a big part of the conversation throughout our SIAMS inspection, particularly in relation to IQ5 – ‘How does the school’s theologically rooted Christian vision create an active culture of justice and responsibility?’. It has helped us reflect on previous SIAMS feedback about how to facilitate pupils’ leadership within the school and wider community.
Of course, it was great to have so many examples and anecdotes of the sorts of things that feed into our school culture and the ways that we ensure our social action is genuine, but perhaps even more helpful was the logs of actions that helped us provide quantitative data. I was able to print off our log of social actions (which includes the type of action & a short comment about it) and evidence that we have collectively taken over 450 social actions in the past two-and-a-half months.
We believe that to create an active culture the drive to take action must come from the children. Our children were able to talk confidently about the problems that they cared about, the actions that they’d taken to affect change, and the impact that it had on the pupils themselves.
Our commitment to having an active culture of justice and responsibility came out as a real strength within our most recent SIAMS report.
Our commitment to having an active culture of justice and responsibility came out as a real strength within our most recent SIAMS report..."
