The Barney & Echo Action Against Bullying Project Award 2012
The Barney & Echo Action Against Bullying Project Award 2012
'Barney and Echo Police Community Clubs of Great Britain’
Wiltshire College
Nominated by: Karen Colley
The Student Union at Wiltshire College sponsored the purchase of citizenship books from the Police Community Clubs of Great Britain which were then donated to nominated local primary schools to support their PSHE programme.
Karen Colley said: “The Student Union at Wiltshire College have a history of active fundraising and community based volunteering. They also pay a fundamental part in the delivery of the College’s Community Campus Programme which follows the themes of the Every Child Matters Agenda.
“It aims to raise awareness of issues in an innovative and exciting way, encouraging students to be involved in both the management of their health and well being and the learning process. Through Community Campus we are able to introduce innovative projects; such as this which also actively help the community.”
The PCCGB approached Wiltshire College to purchase books from the Barney & Echo range. A specific theme within the Community Campus programme is keeping safe and bullying and this is a subject that is focused on within school PSHE programmes.
When the college are approached for sponsorship, a discussion is held with the Student Union as it is their decision which charities they choose to support. After a discussion with the Student Union, it was decided that the college would go ahead if there was interest from a local primary school. A school near to the Chippenham Campus was contacted and it was identified that this would be a worthwhile partnership and the Student Union therefore proceeded to set the project up.
Aims for the project included – managing a working partnership and developing community links. The college hoped to actively support the schools PSHE programme by providing resources that they could then keep for future use. It was also hoped that awareness would be raised around the issues of bullying amongst children. Involvement in the project also benefitted the Student Union by improving team performance and seeing the benefits of their contributions.
“This project has now become an annual consideration for the new Student Union each year and has gone on to be successfully delivered three times with plans to support the project with a further two primary schools this year if the Student Union are in agreement,” commented Karen.
Volunteering, enrichment and team building were all fundamental experiences that students gained from being involved in the project. Karen added: “With one of the primary schools we were able to extend the project to a poster competition for the school children, and these posters were displayed in the Community Campus Area at the college. The winners of the competition visited the college for a presentation of the book voucher prizes also purchased by the Student Association (Union) at the time.”
Students were able to experience the benefits of the project first hand. The local primary school children benefited from the resources which were donated to them and they were also able to benefit from meeting college students which hopefully helped raise their aspirations.
Finally, Mrs Karen commented: “We hope that this partnership project benefited all stakeholders. College students have benefit from the experience of working within the community and we hope that the college students are a positive role model for school children. We believe that we have successfully set up a project that can be rolled out in future years and demonstrates best practice within a community.”
