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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34% of young people live in low income families;
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33% of primary and 42% of secondary pupils receive 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
In previous years, It’s Your Life has delivered the It's Your Future programme to young people at risk from exclusion, all of which have been extremely successful. 100% of our 2014-2015 cohort showed an increase in school attendance, an increase in homework given in on time and no exclusions. Similarly, in our 2013-2014 cohort 85% of learners achieved 5 or more A-C grades at GCSE and 100% went on to further study or apprenticeships.