It's Your Future
'It’s Your Future' addresses what we see as the most persistent failure in our education system: the gap in attainment between young people from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds.
This programme involves providing young people with inspirational mentoring, learning opportunities and life experiences that they would otherwise go without, giving young people the chance to create a better future.
Why?
We know that young people in our borough are some of the most deprived in the country. If we are to tackle the issue of educational achievement we must also work holistically to address the root issues of poverty and disadvantage in our borough.
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Tower Hamlets has the highest level of deprivation in the country;
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Tower Hamlets has the highest rate of child poverty in London and in the UK, with 47.5% of children living below the poverty line (Action for Children, 2024).
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33% of primary and 42% of secondary pupils are eligible for free school meals;
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Over 70% of young people in Tower Hamlets speak English as a second language.
Mentoring
The It's Your Future programme gives all our young people access to a talented mentor who provide ongoing academic and personal support in both one to one or group sessions. Our mentors focus on good relationship building and being excellent role models as a foundation to providing outstanding mentoring. Sessions can address a range of personal and emotional issues to enable young people to make appropriate choices on issues that impact on their future life chances.
Working with Parents
Parental involvement is essential to child development and a key aspect of our programme. It's Your Future helps give parents the support, knowledge and advice they need to give their child the best opportunity to succeed. All parents of children taking part in our programmes are offered a place on our It's Your Child's Life course and have access to intensive, long term support from our Family Support Worker.
Our Track Record
It's Your Life has delivered the 'It's Your Future' programme to young people at risk of exclusion since 2012, all of which have been extremely successful.
100% of our present cohort have increased their school attendance
In 2022-2023 100% of the cohort went back to their current school or moved on to a more suitable place of education following their time at It's Your Life.