Ibstock Community College

Community Organising

Ibstock Community College has joined up with other local schools and community organisations across Leicestershire as part of CitizensUK. CitizensUK have a variety of projects they are campaigning for, and we are pleased to offer our students the opportunity to support them, to develop their voices and to build networks to make real change.

Recently we have been focussing on a couple of their key campaigns including anti-racism and mental health provision. These are subjects that our students are passionate about and it has been great to see them take the lead and give some insights on what we can do as a school to make things better. This year we have already held an anti-racism day to raise the profi le of the issue and are working towards training Stephen Lawrence ambassadors to further educate and challenge racism.

The Mental Health campaign is an issue close to students’ hearts and they have been working on ways to improve access to mental health services. From a whole school survey, mental health was raised as a concern for many students and we have been able to create a new Wellbeing Service for students to access help and support. We have also been linking up with other schools and community groups to petition local health and education services to provide better training for staff and more access to specialist services in schools.

We have been encouraged by the enthusiasm and drive that our students have to make the school and the wider community a better place and look forward to seeing how the projects develop.