Whole Education

Youth Achievement Awards

The Youth Achievement Awards are a project based approach to education and are available through youth organisations, schools and educational projects. In order to achieve an Award, young people must begin a project which requires them to take on increasing levels of responsibility for their work, helping them to develop a sense of ownership over their activities and the learning involved. The Awards enable young people to build self-awareness, self-esteem, communication and negotiation skills and teach young people how to work with others in teams.

Highbury Fields School

As part of their Youth Achievement Award (YAA), students at Highbury Fields School identified two issues they wanted to act on: a lack of youth club facilities for older teenagers and recycling. The team developed two community based projects: a film advertising local facilities for young people and a recycled fashion show. The fashion show event was a huge success: over 100 tickets were sold and the team have also been interviewing staff and young people at local youth clubs. The team believed that working together to attain a Silver YAA award was a great way to demonstrate the skills they had learned to future employers, universities and to record their achievements. The team’s plans impressed the Islington Gazette, who published a story about the positive effect their project was having within the school.

Kristine, 16 said: “The Head Teacher has already asked us to run an event with Year Sevens because the fashion show was so successful!”

Ruzina, 17 said: “From taking part in this project, I’m inspired to help other teenagers in making a change in something they believe in – whatever that is!”

 

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Website
ukyouth.org
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