Marissa Deysosa from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) based in in Kings Court, Sheffield worked with CS Local to successfully deliver an Engaging our Schools Project. The programme is a six week venture joining Civil Servants with students to help improve young people’s employment prospects and help them understand the benefits of working. Marissa explains how she went about delivering the programme.
I led a group of 12 volunteers from DWP to engage with King Edward VII in Sheffield. The students were Year 10 aged between 14 and 15 years of age.
We met with the children accompanied by 3 members of staff for 2 hours every Tuesday afternoon over a period of 6 weeks. We used Project Management principles to plan a fund raising event. The children chose their charity “Children’s Hospital” as it was a personal one to a few of them and a local charity. Over the 6 weeks we covered scope of projects, planning, design, build and testing. The final implementation of the project was the fundraising event. I delegated each volunteer in pairs or individually to plan and lead a session, giving them some ownership and involvement. Throughout the 6 sessions we tried to make the activities fun and interesting for the students, making amendments to our plans as we went along.
The students wrote out to local companies and managed to obtain some items which could be raffled to raise money for the charity. They sent invitations out to their teachers and Head teacher asking for donations. They made all their own posters for the event as well as posters for each stall. We had a dummy run of the day during the testing session.
On the fund raising day we had cake stalls, a raffle, a tombola stall, throw the bean bag game and find the treasure game. A lot of the donations of prizes and home made cakes came from the staff at Kings Court in Sheffield and a big thank you goes to them. On the day we had a celebrity in the house –Mike Tuck Captain of the Sheffield Sharks Basketball team. Members of the Senior Management team (SMT) were also present on the day. The students used the tannoy system in the building to open the event, announce the arrival of the celebrity in the building and to announce the winners. Mike Boughey from the SMT presented certificates to each student along with an Easter Egg in thanks for their participation in the project. We raised over £500.00 on the day.
A big thank you to my team of 12 volunteers for their time and commitment to this project. We all feel we have gained in so many ways and have a real sense of achievement.
So what did the students make of it?
I learnt that the group can pull together and work well as part of a team.
I felt very proud of the amount of money we raised.
That planning can help you a lot so you can have a plan B if something goes wrong.
I built my confidence.
If you would like to lead a CS Local School Enagagement programme please contact Anna Bradley.