Key Stage 4 pupils from Fairfield High School for Girls arranged a whole school event to raise funds for a local charity, Prevent Breast Cancer.

Fairfield High School for Girls have been running the Young Leaders Award (YLA) for the last 3 years with their Key Stage 4 pupils. After exploring key leadership skills and character virtues in the classroom, the YLA challenges pupils to look out into their community, see where they can make a difference and do something about it. For their project this year, the Young Leaders wanted to support the work of a local breast cancer awareness charity as the pupils particularly identified with their work, being an all-girl school. Additionally, some of the pupils had close family members who had suffered from breast cancer, so they wanted to give back to Prevent Breast Cancer’s important work.

For the fundraiser, the Young Leaders arranged for the whole school to take part a sponsored run. Each pupil chose to either walk, run or skip a tenth of a marathon around the route the Young Leaders had created around the school. Teachers took part too, all raising funds for Prevent Breast Cancer.

“Everybody is affected by this in some way, whether you know a person or a family member…even teachers and staff are affected.”

Young Leader

The pupils were hoping to raise £1,000 through the sponsored run, but ended up with a total of over £5,000! They were blown away by the support and kindness of those who had sponsored their project.

But the Young Leaders didn’t stop there! They wanted to carry on raising awareness for breast cancer, so ran a year 10 and a year 11 assembly, sharing facts, statistics and the symptoms of breast cancer. They also made leaflets about the charity’s work and how to support them further which they gave out around the school.

“I have really enjoyed the Young Leaders Award because it’s taught me a lot of skills that I didn’t have before, like patience and learning to cooperate and… understanding other people’s points of view.”

Young Leader

We are hugely inspired and encouraged by this story from the fantastic Young Leaders at Fairfield High School for Girls. Watch the video below to hear these pupils share their experience of the YLA and how it has impacted their lives.

“One thing I’d like to change about the world is to have an open-minded society and be able to adapt and make a difference within from any age.”

Young Leader

The Young Leaders Award is a fully resourced leadership and character education programme, designed by the Archbishop of York Youth Trust, to be delivered by teaching staff within the classroom. The Award has empowered over 120,000 pupils from 850 schools to learn and practice key leadership skills and character virtues and to transform their communities through social action.