Ideas to raise students’ aspirations

Following on from my recent articles on supporting the aspirations of White working class students, I’d like to look at initiatives that could make a difference.

One in particular caught my eye. St Joseph’s Academy in Kilmarnock went about organising its first ever “Festival of Ideas”, designed to provide “exciting, challenging, stimulating and provocative talks to change the way you see the world”. The students themselves sent out 150 invitations, resulting in a line-up of more than 30 high-profile speakers, who talked about a variety of inspirational subjects. The event was part of the school’s enterprise strategy. What’s yours?

In Scotland, “business enterprise” is providing opportunities for children who may not otherwise be encouraged to seek them or even know that they exist. Just one example is in Ayrshire, where David Ross, director of Keppie Design, an award-winning architecture firm, set up the Interaction programme to challenge young people to “design and build flexible, movable structures from which to sell products made by pupils” (see further information for a link to more examples).