2022 Awards

After the great success of the relaunching SAFYAs in 2021, the 2022 edition was held on Tuesday 12th July 2022 at Broadoak Academy, the winners of the Paul Heim Award in the previous year.

Many young people from all across Somerset were nominated for these prestigious awards, with the majority of them being able to attend the event, representing a number of different schools.

Guest speakers on the night included Tom Winchester (Vice-Chairman of Somerset Anne Frank Youth Awards and compère for the event), Danny McGilloway (Principle of Broadoak Academy), Annie Maw (HM Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset & Patron of Somerset Anne Frank Youth Awards) and Leonard Daniels MBE (Chairman of Somerset Anne Frank Youth Awards).

The 2022 SAFYA Winners:

Kingsley Nabosi - Actively Opposing Discrimination, Bullying and Prejudice - Individual

"Off his own back, Kingsley has set up an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion group at Gordano school.

Gordano school has a predominately white British cohort and Kingsley set up this group to make students more aware of the world outside of Portishead.

Kingsley was voted by his peers as the House captain of Cromarty House, so is a very influential and well-respected student.

Kingsley has done extensive research on the following.

- Unconscious Bias
- Decolonising the curriculum
- Principles of racial equality and social justice and what best practice looks like in individual school contexts.
- Develop student empowerment and leadership and implement anti-racist school practices.
- Restorative approaches/education after racial incidents
- Extensive research with external agencies such as SARI, Cargo Classroom, Halo Collective, representation matters, One Bristol Curriculum, show racism the red card.

As a school we feel that Kingsley should be shortlisted for this award as he is a natural leader who wants to make a positive change within the school and the greater community." - Emily Robinson, Assistant Head of House

Amelia Genge, Rosie Davies, Phoebe Geldart & Holly Preston - Actively Opposing Discrimination, Bullying and Prejudice - Group

"These four students proactively set up a meeting with Mr Smith (Head Teacher) to discuss the serious issues that they had seen and experienced around bullying, derogatory statements and misogynistic behaviour. They were deeply concerned with the frequency/ severity of girls' mistreatment by male peers and wanted to influence positive change.

Mr Smith was both shocked and surprised by the stories he heard and impressed with the girls' courage and drive to improve the way in which the school responds to such behaviours and raise awareness within the school population.

At Mr Smith's request, the girls led a 45 minute INSET session to all staff (over 100 adults). During this session, the girls spoke honestly about their experiences and outlined the changes they wanted to see in school. The staff were in awe of the bravery the girls showed to speak with so much clarity in front of the whole staff body. This session is still regularly referred to amongst staff as one of the best ever.

The girls have had whole school impact and have driven positive change within whole school policy. A 'Derogatory Statement' alert has been introduced which alerts senior staff when an offensive comment is made. This is followed up in every case with education, sanctions and communication home. Staff have become more aware and empowered in response as a direct consequence of their actions

These four girls are a true inspiration and Clevedon School could not be more proud of their leadership and impact." - Sam Thomas, Head of House

Shanna Almeida - Supporting and Caring for Others in Need - Individual

"Shanna is quite honestly the most kind individual I have ever taught. She is completely selfless and spends the majority of her day caring for her peers. She ensures that everyone is always happy and included throughout different activities, and goes out of her way to make things at home for children's birthdays, so that when they arrive at school, they feel special.

Shanna is very active on the playground by ensuring that other children are not left out of games and that they are not sad. If they are, Shanna also shares their emotion and then spends as much time with them trying to resolve this.
Shanna has so much love for the environment and has chosen to be a vegetarian herself and do what she can outside of school to care for animals and her community.

It is really hard to give one example for Shanna, because every moment of the day, she melts our hearts with her kindness." - Hannah Thorn, Class Teacher

Bridgwater College Academy Year 7 Student Council - Supporting and Caring for Others in Need - Group

"Students have campaigned fearlessly to raise the profile of local hunger in the community, raise awareness of our food banks, and of the role SydenhamCommunity centre has in supporting and providing for the community. In a bid to reduce the poverty gap, year 7 raised funds and foods for their Christmas campaign , to drop off contributions to our local community group at Christmas. They are currently completing their summer campaign to drop foods and nappies with the community for June. hey did create films for all of the tutor groups based on food bank rationale" - Sheila Baker, Teacher

Katelyn Stephenson - Working Within Conflict Resolution and Social Inclusion - Individual

"Katelyn joined our conflict and resolution group in January. She met with our police commissioner and counsellor in April to discuss community safety. She has been a very visible presence on the Y7 Y8 social areas at lunch times, offering advice, presence reassurance to any student who would seek it. She has continued to patrol and check in with younger groups and staff on a daily basis. This pilot will be rolled out to our y10 students as they become ambassadors next year" - Sheila Baker, Teacher

Peer Mediators, Bridgwater College Academy - Working Within Conflict Resolution and Social Inclusion - Group

"After such a disruptive and difficult time during lockdown this group of pupils expressed their desire to improve the lives and well-being of their peers by undertaking training in conflict resolution and restorative practices. They recognised the need for peer support in school and have started to take responsibility for helping other by mediating restorative justice conferences. They are organising duty rotas to be available during social times to make everyone feel included, they are role models on how to treat each other and ambassadors of kindness and tolerance. The mediators have big plans for anti-bullying campaigns and support across the whole Academy. During their training they expressed their positive and negative experiences and were outstanding at raising each other up, giving compliments and developing their listening skills." - Alexandra Clorley, Head of Year

Anti-Bullying Ambassadors, Portishead Primary School - Paul Heim Award

"We have 10 ambassadors from Year 2 to Year 6 who meet a minimum of twice per term/ 12 times a year to plan a range of events that promote kindness, respect and inclusion.

This works is central to our anti-bullying culture.
So far this year that have been trained, planned and led our anti-bullying week in November, reviewed our anti-bullying policies and charter, organised a non-uniform day to celebrate difference on Blue Monday which we also extended to parents and staff linking to the Samaritans initiative "Brew Monday".
Our Year 6 ambassadors have created an online anti-bullying workshop for parents that can be accessed at anytime from our school website.
Other initiatives have included an anti-bullying poster competition and we are launching an anti-bullying poster competition over the Easter break.
They also arranged a non-uniform fundraiser for the Ukraine DEC appeal which raised £650, introduced worry boxes for each class to children can share concerns on notes to the teacher and worked with our digital leaders to plan Safer Internet day and raise awareness of kind and respectful behaviour online.
Our termly meetings allow the anti-bullying ambassadors to share wider issues with me (as headteacher) which I can raise with my SLT and the wider school staff.
Some key issues they have raised so far is equality of access to balls and the sports court at playtime sand lunches for girls- we focussed on this during International Women's Day - with staff making sure that balls go to girls as well as boys and staff supervising the court ensure girls have equal opportunities.
We have also booked the Bristol City Foundation to come in and deliver workshops to Years 5 and 6 as sportsmanship is an issue in a MUGA opposite our school that children use before our school opens and after it closes.
Our ambassadors are different each year and if selected the award would recognise their collective impact in our school since we introduced them in 2018.

The work they do reflects your 3 core values and we are exceptionally proud of them. They have genuinely made our school a happier and more inclusive place for everyone." - Richard Riordan, Headteacher

Gallery:

To see images from the 2022 SAFYAs, please see our gallery page.