It’s the end of the 2018/19 academic year. How did we do?
We’ve worked with…
About 2,500 young people in total, across Wokingham, Finchampstead, Crowthorne and Bracknell. 40-50 of their parents. And 18 local schools.
We were super busy in schools, running REvive dropdown days, lots of REAL workshops, Mind the Gap, and a new project…
What was new?
Give and Take was our new project developed in response to growing concern about drugs and exploitation around the Wokingham area.
To deliver this project, we forged a new partnership with Reading College and Reading Rep – 50 creative arts students from the college helped to run this highly creative project. It went to 3 primary schools and one secondary school, reaching about 400 school students.
Give and Take was a finalist for Best Education Project at the Reading Cultural Awards 2019. It was so well received that we hope to run it again.
“The story that we saw made me realise that it does not matter what other people think about you – it only matters what you think of yourself. The students really inspired me and I really enjoyed them coming in.” – Year 5 student
“This day was one of the best – if not the best– drop-down day we’ve had organised by an external agency.” – Deputy Head
We also pioneered a walking tour of Wokingham churches, as part of Year 7 RE lessons. 240 Year 7 students from The Holt School visited our friends at a range of different local churches and quizzed the church leaders about what they do and why.
“The students were great, lots of questions and interest.” – volunteer tour guide
We were also very pleased that two local businesses adopted us as their charity of the year – Fresh01 and Berkshire Physio.
Our highlights
This year’s Mind the Gap workshops were very ably led by young people themselves. We trained up 150 Year 10 and 12 students to work alongside our volunteers, and they really made a huge difference to the project’s impact.
“There was a small boy who didn’t want to enter the school hall. He was really nervous and sat outside and said he wanted to go home… When I came back, I saw him sitting on a chair at the back of the class surrounded by three Year 10s… He looked like he was having the time of his life – they totally got him out of his shell!” – volunteer
And we had a great evening for the parents, with over 40 Year 6 parents coming to hear advice and real experiences of starting secondary school, while getting to know Soulscape and each other.
Lastly, we were picked as finalists for three awards this year!
Some other big news…
This summer, Jane Turner is stepping down as Director and Nick Barnett is coming on board as Soulscape CEO, with a vision to bring our much-needed projects to more schools in the Reading area.
Thanks so much to all of our amazing supporters, volunteers and partners who have enabled Soulscape to achieve so much this year!
