In early July CoachBright was lucky enough to get to work with the pupils of West Walsall E-Act Academy, with colleagues from our West Midlands Team delivering a series of workshops all about social mobility and how it relates to the lives of young people. Here at CoachBright, we see social mobility as a fundamental concept within the wider context of education in this country. Ensuring pupils in the UK can determine their own futures and are not held back by their ethnicity, postcode, gender, family wealth or anything else isn’t just important, it’s mission critical!
Our workshops began with a ‘Vote with your feet’ exercise with pupils moving to one side of the room depending on whether they agreed or disagreed with a certain statement- turns out West Walsall pupils prefer Youtube to TikTok and have little confidence that ‘It’s Coming Home’ for the Three Lions in Qatar!
After breaking down what social mobility actually means, we zoomed out to look at social mobility throughout the whole UK and understand how social mobility is tied to income inequality which affects which regions are the most prosperous. We then zoomed in to look at the West Midlands region specifically and highlight some local social mobility champions (Benjamin Zephaniah, Ellie Simmonds, and Zarah Sultana to name a few). Whilst we at CoachBright think it’s important to show an honest picture of the extent of inequality in the UK, it’s even more important pupils have role models to look up to and feel empowered to take charge of their own learning!
As Billie Jean King, tennis champion and equality activist, says, ‘You have to see it to be it’.
The second half of our workshops were really student led, focusing on the social mobility picture in Walsall in 2022. Pupils got stuck into in-depth research activities, first honing in on quantitative data and finding out what kind of jobs people do in Walsall, the average incomes, the average population age, and many other really informative statistics. Pupils then presented the research they’d done in groups, and we were blown away by the insights pupils were drawing from the data. CoachBright might be in the know about social mobility, but West Walsall pupils taught us a great deal about their local area.
Finally, pupils turned their attention to qualitative research, discussing in groups what it feels like to live in the area, and how they might want to change things. Groups were animated about potential improvements, clearly articulating a desire for greater investment in the area to foster a stronger sense of community.
We are incredibly grateful to both staff and students at West Walsall E-Act Academy for the support and engagement they afforded us throughout our week with them. We came away having learnt a great deal about how social mobility relates to the fantastic pupils of Walsall, and are keen to see how other schools take on the challenge!