Gamechangers Case Study: School 21
May 2021
A group of Year 8 students at School 21 have been working hard over the past five weeks on their GameChangers project. They chose to focus on the theme of stronger communities, creating a number of projects to support numerous groups and individuals within their community, in particular those who are most vulnerable. Through a number of initiatives the students tried to tackle and support a number of issues including homelessness and food security as well as looking inwardly to their school community to raise awareness about Islam among students.
The Baking Project
‘It was good although it did get quite messy!’
The students decided to create ‘baking packs’ to donate to local food banks in their local area. These would provide food but also a fun activity for those who needed them. Students found easy recipes such as bread and cookies and measured out the ingredients for each of the kits. Students all took on different roles to assemble the bags and then took these to a local food bank to be distributed in the community.
Baby Bundles
‘We got to choose outfits to go together and make sure they were all folded.’
Students collected second-hand baby clothes and sorted and folded them to create baby bundles to give back out to members of the community with help from the Salvation Army. The students enjoyed creating outfits by picking clothes to go together for children. By the end of the two sessions the group had four whole big bags full of clothes sorted and ready to be given away.
Class Coaching
‘It makes me feel good that other people won’t question and judge anymore.’
‘We had really good feedback from people.’
After a non-uniform day in which students wore traditional Islamic clothing into school they decided to run peer-to-peer coaching sessions with each of the year groups to speak about Islam and spread awareness about their culture and faith. The group visited eight classes in total and opened up conversations around the topic and educated their classmates about particular elements of Islam. The rest of the year were really inspired by this and others have begun setting up class coaching sessions of their own on other topics including talking about library books and stories with powerful messages.
The key to fundraising
‘We already have 50 or 60 people who have registered to buy one!’
Another group of students were inspired to raise money for the community group Lola’s Homeless and decided to sell personalised key rings to their classmates. They have created designs with peoples names or the school name, ordered the materials and set up an online ordering form for people to place their orders. They already have over 50 people in line and hope to get even more orders through advertising on their school social media to raise even more money for the homeless community.
Thank you School 21 for your Gamechanging activity, you’ve inspired us!
