22 July 2019
Motivate to Educate pupils in Harrington Hill took part in certificate ceremony to celebrate their progress following intensive support.
Pupils at Harrington Hill Primary School in Clapton, Hackney, have celebrated the end of an intensive support programme dedicated to promoting wellbeing for themselves and their families in an event in the school.
The pupils, all aged between 6 and 11, took part in a certificate ceremony led by Kineara’s dedicated support practitioner in the school, Davinia, and attended by their parents and carers. The programme provided 15-week intensive support for emotional wellbeing, family relationships and communication, peer relationships, and practical support for the family.
Regarding the support, Harrington Hill have said: “We could not provide the much-needed level of support we do for our whole school community without Kineara’s M2E. Their work places the child completely at the centre and nothing is too much trouble. We can honestly say we’d be lost without the service, as would our pupils and their families.”
These are the latest of nearly 60 local primary school pupils and their families to take part in Motivate to Educate (M2E), an educational support intervention for vulnerable pupils designed and delivered by Kineara, a Tower Hamlets-based community interest company that delivers support interventions to schools, housing associations and local authorities across London. Early in 2019, Kineara’s work with Harrington Hill was shortlisted as a finalist in the Educational Resources Awards.
At a time when the mental health and emotional wellbeing of primary school pupils is of increasing concern, M2E aims to promote emotional awareness, communication and an understanding of emotions and expression, and has improved emotional awareness in 86% of pupils who have been supported by the programme. It aims to improve family wellbeing also, focusing on things like family routines, quality time, and relationship building, and improving wellbeing in nearly 70% of families.
One mother whose daughter took part in the programme said of her daughter: “She has opened up, she’s a different person. Now she’s learnt how to express herself. She’s learnt how to be more self-confident. She’s learnt so much and she got high grades in her exams. The teachers even said…she’s a completely different child, she’s just not the same. It’s amazing!”
The programme has also offered therapeutic counselling for parent who needed more in-depth mental health support, as well as providing practical support for housing concerns in nearly a third of the families on the programme, such as rent arrears, overcrowding and eviction threats. Supporting families into improved living environments can have important benefits for pupil’s wellbeing, and in turn, their ability and motivation to learn in school.
M2E will continue to be delivered to pupils at Harrington Hill Primary in the new school year, with additional wraparound services that include drop in support for parents and for school staff.
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FURTHER NOTES
About M2E
M2E works with pupils who are struggling to engage with their schooling to identity and explore where these challenges have come from. It provides key worker 1:1 support to their parents and carers, to explore how factors at home may be effecting parent’s ability to engage with their children’s education, including housing issues, financial concerns, relationship breakdown in the family, mental health and health support, and more. It offers a holistic approach to support, understanding that stable, healthy and happy family environments are vital when it comes to children’s educational attainment at school.
Find out more here: www.kineara.co.uk/m2e
About Kineara
Kineara is an award winning community interest company that provides tailor made support services to families and individuals in their community, in the areas of housing, education and employment. We support people to recognise their strengths and resilience in the face of challenging times. We do this by listening to what matters, reconnecting people to their passions and exploring how they might make the most of opportunities to impact their own world and the world around them. All of our support services area holistic and tailored to individual needs.
You can find out more about M2E here and the impact we’ve had here.
For quotes, high resolution photo files and more information, please contact Kineara’s Communications Lead, Melanie:
msinghji@kineara.co.uk
020 8976 1450
