Windmills, an organisation dedicated to inspiring people to realise their potential, has launched a new resource aimed at 14-19 year-olds. The programme was developed at Liverpool University and is now being spun out.
Windmills for Young People (STAR) can be delivered within or outside of a school environment and encourages young people to understand more about who they are, explore what they really want from life and develop self-reliance and management skills. It aims to help young people to make informed choices about their future, develop a practical plan to help them to achieve their ambitions and enjoy what they do now and in the future.
Outside school the programme can be delivered by leaders within Sports Clubs, Girl Guides and Scouts, Make Your Mark, Youth Clubs, Young Offenders Programmes and Volunteering Programmes.
After attending the Windmills STAR Champions training, Helen Hawkins the Connexions Personal Advisor at Shorefields (an 11-18 year-old secondary community comprehensive school with 991 children) decided to offer the STAR programme to students from year 11 and 12.
It was delivered in eight one hour sessions over eight weeks with students from year 11 and 12 attending.
Helen Hawkins said: ‘I got engaged with it because I felt that the young people would actually get something out of it. We do one-to-one interviews with the young person but because this was a programme that ran over eight weeks we could actually spend time looking at their skills, looking at their treasures and passions, looking at their ambitions and their roles and then developing their “golden ticket” – what they want to be doing in five years time.’
Laura Ashley Dineley in year 12 said: ‘The star programme helped me to understand what I wanted to do in the future because it made me compare my passions with my skills and it’s helped me to properly understand what I really want to do now. I didn’t have any idea at first but it just clips everything together for you.’
To help you to gain an understanding of STAR, here are three interactive exercises that you can try out, either as an individual or with a young person.
The Release Your Potential Quiz gets you to think about how much you already actually know about your Skills, Treasures, Ambitions and Roles.
The Skills Exercise allows you to identify what your STAR Skills are, i.e. the skills you love using and you’re really good at.
The Ambitions Exercise helps you to identify what you want to have, do and be in the future. What are the things that are really important to you?
Within each of these exercises you’ll see a ‘Time for Action’ section. This section helps you to identify what action you’re going to take based on the outcomes of the exercises. Have some paper close to hand to jot down your ideas for moving forward and making your dreams a reality!
Tags: ambition, career plan, education, school, STAR, Students, teachers, Vicki Owen, Windmills, young people
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