A celebratory day out!
On July 2nd, over 100 students and their teachers from schools across the UK joined their athlete mentors, along with AQA volunteers and trustees from both organisations at London Zoo to celebrate completing the AQA Unlocking Potential programme. We were thrilled to see how much their confidence has increased over the programme and this was a big day to share their achievements with other participants from around the country. Some of the young people have never been to London before, and a trip to the iconic landmark venue was a culmination of their hard work over the year. The event offered the opportunity for all of the 30 schools involved in the programme this year to meet up and share their experiences.
The day began with time available for the young people to explore the zoo, experiencing some of the animals up close. Many had not visited ZSL before, and in spite of a pretty drizzly morning, the rain held off as they spotted monkeys, butterflies and gorillas!
We heard from Cambourne Village College about their fantastic social action project, raising awareness across the school about young people experiencing war - with two members of the group having very personal experiences of this, it was fantastic to hear how they were able to share the message. We also watched a brilliant video ☝️about the young people from Roundhay School's journey on the programme and their social action project around anti-bullying. We're so proud of all the young people for the positive changes they're making in their local area through social action.
Athlete mentor, Yona Knight-Wisdom, shared:
“My group’s project helped more than 80 local Year 5s feel more confident about moving up to secondary school, combining advice, fun activities, and use of the school’s facilities. The impact was real and today, we celebrated all the wins from every school involved, including some truly inspiring projects. I’m proud to play a small role in something so meaningful.”
This year, our Insight and Impact Manager, Ali Watson has been working with alumni students from longstanding AQA Unlocking Potential participating school, Sir Thomas Boughey. The girls led a peer-to-peer evaluation of the programme, engaging with young people during the day at the Zoo to gather their feedback on working with their athlete mentors - tools and tactics included ‘describe the programme in one word’; adding tops (for your top bit of the programme) and pants (for what you’d change) to a washing line hung up in the room; and giant target boards showing where young peoples’ confidence began (in red) and how they felt at the end of the programme (in blue) - we were thrilled to see so many blue dots on the VERY CONFIDENT blueseye!
Young People shared their thoughts on how confident they felt after the programme with alumni participants
Finally, it was on to the awards ceremony, where students and schools were presented with their certificates by Derek Richardson, Managing Director of AQA Assessment Services Ltd and incoming Dame Kelly Holmes CEO Annie Moody, who shared with the young people how impressed she was with their presentation skills, as she delivered her first speech – students also received an Amazon voucher worth £30 for completing the programme.
Our athlete mentor team enjoyed spending the day with the young people from schools across the UK
Dame Kelly Holmes Trust outgoing CEO, Martin attended the day and said:
“It has been wonderful to spend one of my final days at the Trust with these amazing young people and our fantastic team of athlete mentors. I couldn’t be more proud of everything they have achieved on this programme.”
As part of this fantastic partnership with AQA, we are able to offer schools the opportunity to work with their athlete mentors for two years, and groups will be selected to take part from September 2025.