School Focus: Support the Roma communities through community provision in an area of high deprivation and anti-social behaviour.
EXPRESSION OF INTEREST OVERVIEW
In an area of extensive deprivation and anti-social behaviour and with 79.2% of pupils with English as an additional language, Maindee Primary School, Newport, has a reputation in the community as a safe, trusted environment. The school, in consultation with community partners, identified a need to provide outdoor safe space with safe faces to support the children from within the school and wider community. Through the programme, the school hoped to build community cohesion; this being a shared vision between a group of people, along with a sense of belonging to each other. The intention was for the funding to be spent on three overarching areas to support the creation of a community hub:
- Infrastructure equipment (e.g. storage containers, portable floodlights)
- Sporting equipment (e.g. football and basketball posts, boxing gloves, skipping ropes)
- Staff costs (e.g. caretaker and school staff)
PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION
The school received funding from February to July 2022. Attendance numbers, recorded by the school, were stable across the months, with greatest attendance in April (335 participants) and May (302 participants). The lowest attendance was in March (97 participants), when the sessions started, which was notably lower than most months. This therefore suggests that once knowledge of the sessions was disseminated, attendance grew. Monthly learning logs listed activities the school had been offering, such as Wicked Wednesday sessions, boxing, dance, pool table, and beauty sessions. Through the monthly completion of learning logs, the following key reflective points were highlighted, and the school’s implementation of the programme was documented in the timeline shown in Figure 5.
WHAT WORKED WELL:
- Bringing partners together and reminding community members of session times
- Celebrating and encouraging young leaders and volunteers
- Mentors talking to young people in different groups to resolve community tensions, supporting community cohesion
LEARNING POINTS:
- Ensuring all partners were aware of their roles and responsibilities
- Regular dialogue about activities that the young people would like to try to ensure the project was led by young people
NEXT STEPS:
- Identify funding to continue to work with dance providers, as dance has been the sporting offer that many of the young girls have needed
