County Schools Challenge
The County Schools Challenge is a partnership project run across secondary schools in Northamptonshire. Each year, it helps thousands of pupils learn about important social issues while teaching them invaluable skills. With a different theme each year, pupils use a business approach to raise awareness and develop creative ways to tackle a social problem. Most schools aim the challenge at Year 8 or Year 9 pupils and carry out an in-house competition to identify a team to go forward to showcase their idea to a panel of judges at a ‘Dragons’ Den’ style semi-final and grand final. the theme for 2021-22 was gangs and knife crime.
Huxlow Science College were one of the winning schools taking part, a group of students designing a sports water bottle with information about gangs and a QR code to signpost to help to get out of a gang. Northants Police and CIRV asked staff from the Premier League Kicks programme under NTFC's Community Trust to help the students with their design and educational content to help raise awareness around these issues.
Quote from Karl Whiting, Teacher of Science & Pastoral Leader of Year 9, Huxlow Academy:
"We decided to enter the competition as we felt the topic ‘Gangs & criminal exploitation’ would massively benefit the year group. We started planning how we were going to deliver and complete the project. We organised a day off timetable for the year 8s where they worked in groups to plan an idea on how to reduce or make an impact on the topic of gangs and criminal exploitation. We finished the day with a Dragon's Den style competition, where the water bottle group were victorious. We spent further sessions polishing the idea, eventually finishing second in the competition and bagging some funding to get the idea started. The students and staff are very excited and proud of the team’s effort. It will be amazing to see the bottles in reality and watch the incredible assemblies our winning students are planning to deliver".
Quote from PL Kicks programme lead Anna Letts:
“This is a great idea, the students have thought about what product will appeal to everyone and I can see the information on the bottle helping young people to make positive choices. The fact that the idea and educational side has come directly from the students shows how powerful youth voice can be and how it can promote such important messages about crime awareness. We are aiming to give out a bottle to our PL Kicks participants, so they not only have a reusable sturdy bottle at football sessions, they have help at hand if they should ever need it."