Their story, in their words…
For our Mark Evison Project, we introduced a dodgeball club to our school for year 7’s who had just joined the school. We hoped to give them a club where they could socialise and have fun playing dodgeball every week. Dodgeball was chosen after we conducted surveys from a sample of year 7s asking them about which clubs they would want added to the extra curricular timetable.
The club was very successful with a steady number of year 7’s coming every week to engage in the fun. With the fundraising provided, we were able to order new sports bibs and dodgeballs to accommodate for larger numbers of attendees. We felt happy to provide a sense of community and introduce this enjoyable sports club to the year 7’s at our school, as we were once in their shoes and understand the difficulties of moving from primary school to secondary school.
We conducted fundraising after the last session of dodgeball club which was a teachers Vs. teachers dodgeball game for which students had to pay a pound to watch. We also sold soda cans on the side to support this.
From doing this challenge we was able to develop responsibility and leadership skills, through managing many children. We were able to communicate effectively with a vast range of people especially when seeking permission from different departments about both fundraising as well as the weekly.
It taught us the value of organisation and teamwork to allow us to thrive. For the project we had to advertise both fundraising events and the dodgeball ensuring we maximise numbers to provide to as many students as possible. We learnt the value of having rules and regulation and the impact of organisation. We also found an effective way to communicate with students to keep them engaged.
