An account from lead teacher Mr Thomson
Shabir wasn’t originally selected for our Sky Sports Living for Sport project. Whilst being involved in a minor element of gang culture, Shabir was always on the periphery. On analyzing his student profile, Shabir had only received a couple of negative behaviour marks since joining the school, but had only received a corresponding few positive marks. Shabir rarely spoke in classes and in fact kept his head down so not to be noticed.
For this group of students, we organised a 6 week boxing course with a local gym. As part of the project the group’s behaviour, attendance and attitude to learning was monitored and they were supported with weekly mentoring sessions.
Students not embracing the project were not allowed to take part in the activity. Shabir’s targets have been very different from his peers on the programme but no less challenging for him, for example asking, answering, and contributing 3 times in whole class activities. We wanted to push him to reach his full potential and gave him responsibility for organising the activities.
The impact on Shabir has been impressive, we now see a different Shabir in lessons. Shabir still has work to do in extending his circle of friends and having the confidence to engage in activities by himself but he’s developing the skills to do that. Shabir is becoming the voice of calm and reason amongst his peers. Academically, since engaging in SSLFS, Shabir has achieved his first grade C in his GCSE Science modular exam.
Shabir Hussain said, "I wake up in the morning and feel confident about school and feel as if a have a target to achieve in all of my lessons".