MyPlace centres open doors to schools
Gabriella Jozwiak
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Youth organisations are to encourage schools to use facilities at government-built youth clubs under a Department for Education-funded project.
A consortium of 13 youth organisations has received £1.3m of DfE funding to give schools free access to arts and sports provision in 15 MyPlace centres.
Partner organisations including Ambition, Substance and UK Youth will work with schools to encourage classes or individual pupils to access drop-in sessions or longer projects.
Helen Marshall, chief executive of Ambition, said the two-year project aimed to strengthen community links and ensure “education doesn’t happen in isolation”.
“Young people don’t just get what they need from school,” said Marshall. “Actually there are other community resources.
“Youth services should be working in partnership with schools because it’s about providing a holistic education for young people.
“Young people learn and gain new information from different services in different ways, and should therefore be provided with a range of different opportunities from organisations working in partnership – whether that’s a statutory body or voluntary sector organisation.”
The sessions will be offered to all schools, but the consortium hopes to reach children and young people living in disadvantaged areas.
Marshall said one example of how the project will operate was an arts initiative in Oxford, where partner Oxford Association of Young People will work with particular school years to encourage whole classes to access MySpace arts facilities.
The funding was awarded under the DfE’s National Prospectus Grant Programme and work on the project began in April.
The project will work with MyPlace centres in Bristol, Carlisle, Dorset, Halifax, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, and Tees Valley.
The MyPlace programme is a £240m government capital investment fund for youth centres that aims to create youth facilities across England.
