Down High Achieves Gold Compassionate Award

Richard Moore, founder of Children in Crossfire, came to Down High to present the Gold Compassionate School Award. The school had to demonstrate that it delivered the “Educating the Heart” programme, which happens in Year8 LLW and Year 13 Global Citizenship classes. We also needed to provide evidence of Shared Education initiatives where the principles of reconciliation are celebrated. The school’s Eco-group was also pivotal in helping the school reach gold as it organises community events, such as the recent beach clean and the seed bag project last year, which encourages our school to foster a more compassionate and sustainable approach.

Various initiatives like the clothes swap and charity events organised by the “Make a Difference” group have also pushed the school into the Gold award criteria. Pupils’ emotional wellbeing is always high on the agenda at Down High and the compassionate award recognised the importance of this, alongside the need to embed in our pupils a sense of resilience and an appreciation of what we have in an ever changing and challenging world.

The Year 13 pupils enjoyed and extended talk given by Richard and his story is a very powerful one that was valuable to everyone present. The school thanks him sincerely for presenting the award.