Lights, Camera, Action

Take one, action… that’s a wrap on the first round of School Through My Eyes filming.

First off, I wanted to say a big massive THANK YOU to all of our young people, staff and carers who took part in our filming week, we could not have done this without you.

I couldn’t feel more proud of our young people for their ability to not only speak on camera for hours, but to reflect so openly and honestly about their experiences with education and provide some lovely advice and support for other young people and professionals who support young people with their education. I was full of admiration and awe at just how patient, compassionate, reflective and understanding our young people are, especially when talking about their own experiences which is not always very easy. Without our young people, this project would not be possible and I am so excited to share our finished materials with you all very soon.

Behind the scenes

Here are some of our behind the scenes shots..

We hired a local Airbnb which was so lovely with some stunning views.

A Sneak Peak

An overarching theme from all of our interviews so far has been VOICE, and how important it is for young people to feel listened to, and involved in decisions made about their care and education.

We also hear lots of insightful discussions and reflections about what support young people need from professionals to thrive in education, from extra time for reading to patience, understanding and emotional support.

Our young people also spoke about the advice they’d like to give other care-experienced young people in school, from making good friends to knowing who is there to talk to when you need it.

This may or may not be news to you, however, listening to our young people with lived experiences, most currently still in education, this is very powerful and moving. Lots of great change has been implemented since the release of The Promise reports in 2020, however, it is still evident that there are gaps and more to be done to ensure care-experienced young people thrive in their education.

Our young people told us they feel thankful and proud to have been given the opportunity to talk about their own experiences and share some insights and advice about what is working well and what still needs to change.

Next Steps

We are not at curtain call just yet, as we have more plans to film again in the future with some of our young people who couldn’t join us this past week.

We anticipate even more wonderful insights into the educational experiences of care-experienced young people in Scotland and look forward to sharing this with you once we have our final edit.

There will be lots more work done behind the scenes to develop our training materials, with the aim to share this with professionals in early 2025.

As always, should you have any questions or if you’d like to discuss our project further please do get in touch with myself at amber.mann@fosteringpeople.co.uk.

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