Year 12 Blues Award

Everything you can be and everything you are meant to be.

The Blues Award is an extra-curricular programme for all students in Year 12 that encourages them to volunteer their time and energy to support the wider school community. Our students could also rise to new challenges out of school and give back to local charities, the elderly community, or anyone in need of support. Year 12 students are encouraged to give back as much voluntary time as possible, ideally “24 hours of giving”, however several students this year have gone above and beyond!

Emma volunteered throughout the year with school events including Open Evenings, Open Days and Guidance Meetings. She edited the Schools Humanities Magazine in her own time, and she was a literacy leader for year 7 students. Emma worked with a charity over the Winter called ‘Warm Spaces’ helping to provide hot meals to the elderly and vulnerable people in the community. She was also a member of our Young Enterprise team devoting many hours to the project outside of normal school hours.
Elizabeth volunteers at her local church helping young children with crafts and bible study classes. She was a young leader at Church Youth Camp this year and she helped with a Christmas foodbank – providing over 270 families across Tameside with food and Christmas dinner. Elizabeth went to Uganda at Easter as a volunteer with the charity Hope House Projects. In Uganda she was teaching young children, farming, and supporting local families. She also organised fundraising events at school for this charity.
Throughout the year Daksh has helped the Maths department every week to improve the maths skills of our younger students at Blue Coat. Daksh also had an amazing experience this year when he went to India for three weeks volunteering in a small village to help young students with their maths.
Raisha has helped to tutor our younger students in science and literacy skills each week throughout the year. She also volunteered to help with school events such as open days and guidance meetings. Raisha is an NHS Cadet; she volunteers at her local hospital every week and helps teach young children how NHS services operate.
Rosie has been like an extra member of staff for the Engineering and Design department at Blue Coat this year. She has volunteered every week, sometimes every day, to help show younger students how to use our engineering equipment and improve their engineering skills. Rosie has also helped with out of hours school events and supervised the year 8 landing.

Last year, as a year group, our students contributed a total of 4691 hours. Our students gave up their time volunteering in the local community, working with charities and helping our own staff and departments with activities such as:

•Open days

•Parents’ information evenings

•Science clubs

•Mentoring younger students both at Blue Coat School and Brian Clarke Academy

•Working in food banks, community centres and youth clubs

•Supporting extracurricular activities such as the swimming gala

•Raising money for charities.

•Volunteering overseas teaching in poorer parts of the world and giving their time for good causes

Taking part in The Blues Award in Year 12 allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and dedicate time to new activities and responsibilities which have heavily benefitted both my confidence and communication skills throughout the year.

I would definitely recommend The Blues Award, as it not only provides opportunity to develop a range of skills, but also serves as experience which will be recognised on personal statement/future applications.