My Way!

Friday, 22 January 2010

Category - Campaign news

A message from First News editor Nicky Cox MBE about why she think the My Way! campaign is so important

Our big news is our My Way! campaign and we are really delighted with the early response to it.

Turn over and read a wonderful piece written for us by nine-year-old Alfie who has dyslexia. Alfie got in touch when he saw Henry talking about the campaign on GMTV.

The inspiration for the campaign came from children like Alfie who Henry and I have been meeting on a series of school tours that we’ve been enjoying over the past two years. Henry speaks to the children about how tough he found school and yet how he managed to find his own way to succeed. By the end of our visits, the rise in self-esteem of children with learning challenges in those schools is almost tangible. And we can see that their friends are seeing them in a completely new light too.

This was brought home to me again last week when Henry and I visited the inspirational St Albans C of E school in Camden. The school is part of the DCSF’s Achievement For All initiative and, in a short space of time, headteacher Mary Thorne and her team are ensuring inclusion and inspiration for ALL children in a very deprived area. We met a little boy who had so enjoyed growing cress in class that he was now the lunchtime helper of the school gardener. As Henry said: “He could learn to read while he waited to weed!”

The point being that, because he’d found something he was good at and enjoyed, he had the confidence to go on and develop himself in other areas, too.