About ReachOut
ReachOut is a strategic partner for schools. We run after-school programmes where we build the socio-emotional skills that transform outcomes for 9-14 year olds. We define these skills as empathy, responsibility, problem solving, initiative, teamwork and emotion management.
We exist because not all children have the opportunity to just ‘pick up’ socio-emotional skills. The 9-14 age bracket is an especially crucial juncture in childhood development, so we focus our efforts on helping children in this range.
Within this bracket, we further focus our efforts on helping young people constrained by circumstance. Our programme delivery is informed by an evidence-based curriculum and delivered through collective mentoring with trained practitioners and volunteer mentors. This combines positive peer support with supportive adult role models, allowing us to have the most impact.
What are socio-emotional skills?
Socio-emotional skills are foundational skills for young people. Research has shown that the development of these skills at a young age, when the brain is in a key stage of its development, is one of the strongest indicators of a young person’s success at school and happiness in life.
They’re foundational skills, but we believe they’re often taken for granted because it’s assumed that everyone has equal access to developing them – and that’s not true.
Just like with Maths or English, developing these skills depends on a wide range of factors and can be influenced, formally or informally by access to a range of different learning opportunities.
That’s where we come in. In partnership with the Centre for Youth Impact, we’ve developed an engaging, evidence based curriculum to support the young people we work with.
We work with young people to develop their:
Responsibility
Reliably meeting commitments and fulfilling obligations.
Empathy
Relating to others with compassion, acceptance and understanding
Problem Solving
Planning, strategising and implementing complex tasks including critical thinking, goal setting and responsible decision making.
Initative
The ability to take action, sustain motivation and persevere through challenges.
Teamwork
Leadership, and the ability to collaborate, communicate and coordinate with others.
Emotion Management
Being aware of, naming, understanding and constructively handling positive and negative emotions.
What happens on our projects?
We run two types of projects – ReachOut Club which takes place in primary schools with young people aged 9-11; ReachOut Academy which takes place in high schools with young people aged 11-14. Every project is led by a trained practitioner and supported by a fantastic team of volunteer mentors.
Find out more about the work we do in each project:
ReachOut Club projects run straight after school for Years 5 and 6. Each project supports 10 young people for 18 weeks. The sessions involve one-to-one Maths and English activities focusing on building academic, combined with fun group activities such as sports, drama and art. Providing young people with a mentor whilst in Years 5 and 6 helps them to prepare for the challenging transition into secondary school.
ReachOut Academy projects run in the evenings for Year 7 – Year 9. Each project supports 16 young people and runs for 18 weeks. Each two-hour session includes an hour of mentoring focusing on Maths and English as well as group activities all centred around developing young people’s socio-emotional skills. The second hour is an extra-curricular group activity also such as sports, drama, public speaking and art. Our mentors help young people navigate through challenging teenage years and ultimately prepare them for crucial GCSE exams and transition into further education and work.
“ReachOut opened everything up a little more for me”
ReachOut Mentee
