My Way!

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Category - Breaking news

THIS week First News readers are at Downing Street to launch the My Way! Awards.

Our My Way! campaign is raising awareness of the fact that one in five children have learning challenges. That means around six children in each of your classes finds it hard to learn in the same way that other children do. Through My Way! we are busting apart any myths that these children are less intelligent. We are showing that we each learn in a different way, and celebrating how each child can succeed… their way.

Seven First News readers, who have been helping the Government with their plans for special education needs, were at Downing Street for the launch of the My Way! Awards, thanks to author Frances Osborne and her husband, Chancellor George Osborne.

While there, Alfie, Sarah, Ben, Polly, Emus, Georgia and Jack became the very first children in the UK to present a My Way! Award. The awards say: “Thanks for helping me to learn My Way!” and give children who need a bit of extra support an opportunity to thank somebody who they feel has really been there for them, whether it’s a teacher, a friend, a brother or sister, parent, grandparent, a cousin, a dinner lady or it could be someone who sits next to them in maths.

Any child in the UK can nominate someone to receive a My Way! award, which we will send to your schools to be presented in assemblies or straight to you if they are for someone out of school. (See the form on page 2.) The hope is that the awards will raise awareness of learning challenges and will help get children the understanding that they need. Sarah told us that, after she wrote about her cerebral palsy in First News, children spoke directly to her, were interested to know more about her condition, and wanted to know how they could help.

It was children who gave us the idea for our My Way! campaign in the first place when we spoke with them in the first of the school tours that Henry Winkler and I have been doing over the past four years. Henry is world famous as The Fonz from a programme called Happy Days but he is also known as the author of the successful Hank Zipzer novels about a boy with dyslexia. The stories are based on Henry’s own childhood and the difficulties he faced.

The launch of the My Way! Awards comes in the middle of this year’s tour around the country. Thanks to the support of THQ’s uDraw, we are meeting thousands of children in schools and theatres. And Henry is appearing on lots of television shows to talk about My Way!

Children told us that one of the things that made school hard for them was the lack of understanding from other children about what made them different, and that sometimes they ended up being called names and bullied. They asked if they could make films explaining their learning difficulties for other people to watch. The films were shown for the first time at Downing Street and you can also watch them here:

Intro

Alfie

Jack

Sarah

Ben

Polly

First News will carry on running weekly My Way! reports in the paper and online. Each report is written by a young person who shows how they are doing well despite having a learning challenge. They view their difficulties not as a problem but as an opportunity to show how brilliant they are at dealing with them. And we salute them.