The Revolution: making the world a better place

Have you ever wanted to change the world? Have you ever dreamed of a better life? Have you ever wished that people around you were kinder, or more considerate? Have you ever wanted to do something to help others, but weren’t sure where to begin?

In July 2015, all students in Chenderit School’s Year Seven were set a homework to complete over the summer break: students were asked to "make the world a better place” by selecting and taking part in a range of activities designed to help them develop into caring, generous, empathetic adults. The assignment challenged each student to make the most of their time off school, by engaging in activities that might help the student, their family and the wider community.

The response to this assignment was quite staggering, and at times humbling. Students did themselves and their families proud, demonstrating great generosity and spirit. The assignment also had another, somewhat unexpected, result: news of the assignment soon spread via a range of social media, with parents, educators and all sorts of other individuals across the world quickly becoming interested in our assignment and associated ethos.

Since then, the project has been a regular feature of life at Chenderit and in 2016, the project was nominated and shortlisted as a finalist in the Northamptonshire Education Awards. We were awarded a special commendation at an awards ceremony in June 2017.

This year, our Summer Assignment connects to our forthcoming 40th anniversary celebrations. We have developed forty challenges for students to have a go at- from baking a cake to writing to their local MP, with some of the challenges referring specifically to our 40th anniversary. We hope that everyone in our community will attempt at least one of these challenges over the summer, but encourage everyone to complete as many as they can.

As with our previous Summer Assignments, we hope that this will encourage students to take an active role in reaching their potential. Students are encouraged to "Aim High, Work Hard and Be Nice” and we hope that by responding to these challenges, students will become more considerate, more focussed, more generous and more understanding. Like anything in life, the more students make of this opportunity, the greater their reward will be, so we look forward to discovering what each student will choose to do in response. If you are interested enough to have read this, perhaps you too can join us.

Who knows - perhaps something that one person does might inspire someone else and in doing so could help change the world. Perhaps something that you do could make all the difference.

 

» Get involved: how to make the world a better place (PDF)

» Get involved: read about previous Summer Assignments