Pupils at All Saints Primary School in Newton Heath, Manchester were treated to a visit from ‘Buddy’ to launch their 100% Challenge for Attendance which is available to all schools in Greater Manchester. The MOTIV 100% Challenge recognises both excellence and significant improvements in school attendance, rewarding school attendance in two categories – 100% attendance and 100% effort in attendance.

The scheme is run by award winning Manchester Community interest Company MOTIV CIC and was very successful last year as part of Manchester City Council attendance drive (in association with Crayola), with 54% of all pupils (aged 5-16) with improved attendance.

Headteacher Lorraine Tennant commented ‘We are committed to doing everything we can to giving the pupils at this school the best start in life but we can only do that if they are committed to being here, without fail, unless they are sick. The assembly is designed to give them a vision for their future and what it might hold if they work hard and come to school, on time, everyday.’

The class assembly features role play with the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre model maker to demonstrate to pupils what affect poor and attendance and lateness would have in the real world of work. The class with the highest attendance from last term will be treated to a demonstration from the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre team.

MOTIV Director Rose Marley who is a winner of the Women in Ethical Business Awards (Tridos Bank & The Times) commented ‘the LEGO brand is a popular and trusted brand amongst pupils and the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre is an ideal environment to engage youngsters in their learning through play. It’s an ideal message we are putting out their for kids with the Centre – if you work hard, you get rewarded, it’s a lesson for life!’

Neil Crittenden, General Manager of LEGOLAND Discovery Centre commented ‘It’s a superb way for us to put something back into the community, knowing we can make a social impact with our LEGO character.  Putting children first is at the heart of the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre brand, so we are  of course happy to endorse Buddy’s efforts to support the idea of private companies playing a bigger part in that community.’

If you would like more information about running The 100% Challenge with LEGOLAND Discovery Centre in your school please contact Sam Evans at MOTIV on (0161) 282 8380 or via sam@motiv.org.uk

Click here to find out more about LEGOLAND Discovery Centre, located at The Trafford Centre, Manchester.

The news that more than half the city’s primary and secondary pupils have had fewer days off school, comes as Manchester celebrates its record GSCE results.

A major drive to improve school attendance began in January led by Manchester City Council, working with schools and parents. Since the launch of the Citywide Attendance Campaign 29,383 pupils  (54% of all pupils aged 5-16) have had better attendance and of these 7,191 (13.59% of all pupils aged 5-16) improved their absenteeism by 10% or more.

Councillor Sheila Newman, Executive Member for Children’s Services at Manchester City Council, said: “These figures show the direct link between good attendance and getting good results. Absenteeism rates have reduced in the year where the number of pupils who achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C has risen to 45% from 38.6% last year. This is fantastic news for everyone involved.”

The Citywide Attendance Campaign was threefold: it included publicity about the benefits of good attendance; a motivation programme and reward system for pupils from MOTIV CIC; and a step-up in home visits and enforcement measures for parents where necessary.

During the spring and summer terms Manchester’s primary and secondary schools participated in the MOTIV 100% Challenge commissioned by the council. Pupils with 100% or improved attendance earned badges, rewards and participated in celebration events.

In addition, a total of 3,325 home visits were carried out across Manchester in the spring term. During this monitoring period 2,500 warning letters were sent to parents. After the letters 1,500 pupils did not have any further unauthorised absences. Close consultation with schools over the remaining pupils resulted in 554 penalty notices being issued, of which 235 have led to further legal intervention.

By the end of the spring half term Manchester’s results showed that:

• Absence rates in primary schools had decreased from 6.31% last year, to 5.54% this year;
• Absence rates in secondary schools, including academies, had decreased from 10.39% last year to 9.27% this year;
• Absence rates in maintained secondary schools had decreased from 9.89% last year to 8.71% this year.

The rate of persistent absence, classed as pupils who have missed 32 or more days, has also improved:

• In primary schools persistent absence reduced from 2.9% last year to 1.77% this year;
• In secondary schools including academies it reduced from 10.62% last year to 8.62% this year;
• In maintained secondary schools it dropped from 9.63% last year to 7.48% this year.

Cllr Sheila Newman concluded, “Parents, teachers and pupils should all be congratulated on their hard work. But, we can’t afford to be complacent when it comes to our children’s futures and we must keep up the momentum in September with the new academic year.”

Recently published national data, which is due to be validated in October, indicates that Manchester’s secondary school absence rates have improved by four places in country’s overall performance during the spring term, and that primary schools have come in line with the national average during the same period.

Please contact MOTIV on (0161) 282 8380 or support@motiv.org.uk to find out more about the success of The 100% Challenge in Greater Manchester and other local authorities.

& of course thank you to all the pupils and chaperones who made up the audience – for a full list of attending schools please see below.

We filmed the whole event and will be producing a video of the day very soon but in the meantime we have uploaded some photographs from the event to Snapfish – you can view the images as a gallery and order prints and a collage using your MOTIV Reward Card to claim up to 30 free prints and 1 collage (please see the T&C on your Reward Card for further details)

Click here to view the MOTIV Saturday Morning Rocks Snapfish gallery and to order prints. Please note that you will need an adult to set up your Snapfish account if you have not already got one.

Daisy Dares You’s new single ‘Rosie’ is out today – available on download now!

The full list of schools who sent pupils and chaperones is below:

Oldham Schools:
Blue Coat C.E.
Breeze Hill
Counthill
Crompton House
Grange
Our Lady’s R.C.
North Chadderton
South Chadderton
St. Augustine of Canterbury R.C.

Manchester Schools:
Manchester Creative Media Academy for Boys
Manchester Creative Media Academy for Girls
Plant Hill Arts College
Wright Robinson Specialist College
St Peter’s RC High School
St Paul’s Catholic High School
Parrs Wood High School
Our Lady’s RC High School
Newall Green High School
Manchester Health Academy
Manchester Enterprise Academy
Manchester Academy
Levenshulme High School
Burnage Media Arts College
Abraham Moss High School
Cedar Mount
Chorlton High

]]> http://www.motiv.org.uk/motiv-news/saturday-morning-rocks-photographs-uploaded/feed/ 0 http://www.motiv.org.uk/motiv-news/motiv-celebrates-the-100-challenge-with-saturday-morning-rocks-at-hard-rock-manchester/ http://www.motiv.org.uk/motiv-news/motiv-celebrates-the-100-challenge-with-saturday-morning-rocks-at-hard-rock-manchester/#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:38:58 +0000 motivadmin http://www.motiv.org.uk/?p=1828 On Saturday 19th June over 300 secondary school pupils from 27 schools across Greater Manchester will come together to celebrate completing The MOTIV 100% Challenge for school attendance at Hard Rock Manchester for an exclusive, invite-only concert by DAISY DARES YOU.

Supported by Manchester City Council and Oldham Council and produced by award winning social enterprise MOTIV The 100% Challenge was issued to every primary and secondary school across Manchester to encourage greater school attendance across Manchester.

MOTIV Director Rose Marley commented ‘Daisy Dares You is an ideal choice of artist for this great celebration of achievement as she is a shining example of hard work resulting in reward. Attending pupils will get to find out more about the entertainment industry on the day though – they can’t all be rockstars but they can all have a successful career if they put the effort in!”

Saturday Morning Rocks will be headlined by Sony Records artist DAISY DARES YOU. Daisy, who is 16 years old and was signed to Sony last year and has already enjoyed huge chart success with Number One Enemy , featuring a guest appearance by Chipmunk. Daisy describes her music as “delirious funky produce”. “I really do feel ready for this,” she says. “This is the best thing that could’ve happened to me.

Not a lot of people my age get a chance like this to perform and release their own records.” Daisy’s aspirations for herself remain at 100%  “I’m not aiming too high at this point. But a global smash hit would be nice.” She comments.

The 100% Challenge has been running in over two hundred schools across Greater Manchester in Spring and Summer Terms. Pupils have been rewarded with exclusively designed badges at each half term and if they completed a whole term with full attendance or significantly improved attendance they receive a special reward tailored to their year group and their school.

Councillor Jack Hulme, Cabinet Member for Children and Families said:  “Oldham Council is anticipating some positive  results at the end of this school year. We have been working hard as an authority and with MOTIV for the past couple of years and we can really start to see that relationship bear fruit”

The MOTIV 100% Challenge is delivered by MOTIV on behalf of Oldham Council and Manchester City Council as part of a range of measures to poor tackle poor school attendance and low aspiration across the city. Early results from Manchester indicate a significant improvement in school attendance over the whole year with a 19% increase in full attendance across Spring Term.

Councillor Sheila Newman, Executive Member Children’s Services, Manchester City Council, said:

“This is going to be a fantastic event for the young people who attend. They thoroughly deserve this exciting reward for their good attendance in school and for demonstrating through this that they value their education and understand the importance of attending school every day they should.”

Rose Marley said: “A child’s future can be mapped out by their attendance record so it’s important that we communicate in a way that is appealing. It’s not just about reward though, through events such as this, we demonstrate just what can be achieved through hard work, teaching pupils valuable skills and raising aspirations in the process.”

The attending schools from Manchester and Oldham are:

Oldham Schools:
Blue Coat C.E.
Breeze Hill
Counthill
Crompton House
Grange
Our Lady’s R.C.
North Chadderton
South Chadderton
St. Augustine of Canterbury R.C.

Manchester Schools:
Manchester Creative Media Academy for Boys
Manchester Creative Media Academy for Girls
Plant Hill Arts College
Wright Robinson Specialist College
St Peter’s RC High School
St Paul’s Catholic High School
Parrs Wood High School
Our Lady’s RC High School
Newall Green High School
Manchester Health Academy
Manchester Enterprise Academy
Manchester Academy
Levenshulme High School
Burnage Media Arts College
Abraham Moss High School
Cedar Mount
Chorlton High
Loreto

The Painting Brighter Futures galleries are now live in the Manchester, Nottingham and Oldham microsites – please click on each area to view them.

In association with Crayola, MOTIV produced the ‘Painting Brighter Futures’ resource to get children thinking and talking about what they aspire to be. It also illustrates that there is a direct link between good attendance and their futures.

Thank you to all the pupils and teachers for all their hard work – we received 100′s of entries from primary schools across Manchester, Nottingham and Oldham.

Those pupils fortunate enough to have won a special star prize from Crayola will receive it from the school as we will be sending the prizes out with the HT5 100% Challenge badges. If your school entered the competition and has yet to submit your badge figures for HT5 please do so as soon as possible by clicking here

Last year pupils from three north Manchester high schools – North Manchester High School for Girls (now The Creative and Media Academy Girls), North Manchester High School for Boys (now The Creative and Media Academy Boys), and Plant Hill High School – were charged with the task of designing a building wrap on the theme of ‘Sharp Futures’ for young people. The best design from one of the three schools was to be produced and displayed on the outside of the former Sharp warehouse in Newton Heath.

Today the competition winners from the Creative and Media Academy (Girls) were driven to The Sharp Project where they will see for the first time their winning artwork draped down the outside of the building on Oldham Road.  They then went on to a winners’ reception at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Manchester where their winning pitch to competition judges took place last year.

The pupils’ winning design was chosen for its clear concept, concise message, and for best meeting the design brief that was set.  The competition was devised by award winning local social enterprise company MOTIV as part of their ongoing partnership work with The Sharp
Project.  This involves giving fourteen year olds valuable experience working on real life projects whilst they are still in school that will benefit them when they leave school and have to put together their CVs for future employers.

Competition judges included Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council; Sharp Director Susan Woodward; local entrepreneur David Derbyshire, Director of successful local business Astra Signs; and Lee Stanley, Director of award winning social enterprise, MOTIV.

Sue Woodward said: “The idea of Sharp Futures is to engage fourteen year old pupils now so that by the time they do leave school they have an armful of real projects they have delivered on their CV giving the best opportunity for their future. They were given a real design brief and the mural ideas they presented were outstanding.”

The competition was sponsored by Astra Signs who agreed to produce a large scale impressive building wrap, based on the winning artwork from the school that came up with the most inspiring artwork, for The Sharp Project on Oldham Road.

Manchester City Council and New East Manchester is transforming the former Sharp warehouse in east Manchester into a new centre for creative and digital industries – offering talented starters, young entrepreneurs and established professionals the opportunity to develop and prototype their ideas in a purpose-built environment that provides unrivalled access to very high speed broadband connections.

Sir Richard Leese said: “The finished artwork is really stunning and something that each of the pupils involved in should be really proud of. The Sharp Futures project goes to the heart of innovative and creative Manchester, giving the opportunity to our young people, in this case from North Manchester, to show what they can do, and to see what doors might open for them in the future if they put the work in. Great stuff!”

For more information about The Sharp Project please visit www.thesharpproject.co.uk

Sharp Project MD Sue Woodward and Astra Signs MD David Derbyshire with the MCMA pupils in front of the banner.

MCMA pupils presented  with their own mini Sharp Futures banners at Crowne Plaza Manchester

The pupils enjoy ‘mocktails’ at Crowne Plaza Manchester

The Sharp Futures banner design

Pupils from the Manchester Creative & Media Academies, Walkden High School in Salford and Grange School, South Chadderton and Counthill School in Oldham all participated, pitching a wide variety of ideas to the news team, from the debate about school mergers to entertainment and fashion stories.

The winning pitch from Manchester Creative & Media Girls Academy was selected by the Channel M judging panel. Content Editor for Channel M Today Charisse Holder explained:

The idea was a strong idea and the presentation was passionate. The team presented their pitch very well. Their enthusiasm came across in the presentation and this put them ahead of the other teams in the competition

You can watch the news feature below, filmed live at the premiere of the MCMA-produced ‘The Legend of Bogart Hole Clough’ at Manchester’s Printworks.

The Channel M Experience at Urbis has been awarded to these select few pupils from Salford, Oldham and Manchester in recognition of their excellent or considerable effort in their school attendance. Forty pupils in total were awarded the exclusive opportunity as part of the MOTIV 100% Challenge designed to inspire and motivate young people and supported by the Manchester Creative & Media Academies, Oldham Council and Salford Council.

Director Rose Marley from the award- winning Manchester Social Enterprise MOTIV said

This was a fantastic opportunity for pupils to get a real taste in the world of local media, whilst accruing a considerable set of skills to include on their CV

See Rose announce the winning team live on Channel M:

This was the first in a unique trial from the MEN Regional Media to hear from the pupils what they want out of their local news team. Schools wishing to find out more should contact MOTIV on 0161 282 8380

Manchester City Council and New East Manchester plan to transform the former Sharp warehouse in Newton Heath, east Manchester into a new centre for creative and digital industries, offering talented starters, young entrepreneurs and established professionals the opportunity to develop and prototype their ideas in a purpose-build environment that provides unrivalled access to very high speed broadband connections.

‘”The idea of Sharp Futures” commented Sharp Director Susan Woodward “is to engage fourteen year old pupils now so that by the time they do leave school they have an armful of real projects they have delivered on their CV. Giving the best opportunity for their future. They were given a real design brief and the mural ideas they presented were outstanding”.

Former pupil of North Manchester High School for Boys, Lee Stanley is Director of award winning Manchester enterprise MOTIV that delivered the competition as part of the 100% MOTIV Challenge. “I really wanted to give the pupils, something to get excited about. The idea of having artwork down the side of such a prominent building in the area – I knew that would get them thinking”

The competition picked up pace when North Manchester High School for Girls joined the Challenge alongside Plant Hill Performing Arts College who also pledged to give 100% Effort to the MOTIV Challenge.

The panel of judges, at the finals held at the Crowne Plaza in Manchester yesterday. included Sir Richard Leese. “This goes to the heart of innovative and creative Manchester, giving the opportunity to our young people, in this case from North Manchester, to show what they can do, and to see what doors might open for them in the future if they put the work in. Great stuff!”

Winning Concept

The judges decided to award the winner of the concept category to the school who demonstrated the greatest ability to meet the given brief. The winning concept was clear and delivered a concise message for the Sharp Project. The judges chose North Manchester High School for Girls as the winning concept and they will now be given the opportunity to work with David Derbyshire/ Astra Signs to complete their design which will be projected down the side of the Sharp Building and unveiled in the next school year.

Winning Design

North Manchester High School for Boys produced a ‘stunning’ piece of Design but the judges felt that it did not meet as strong an understanding as the winning Concept of the Sharp project being a ‘digital grow-bag’. However, it was decided that this design be awarded the winner of the Design category because Sir Richard Leese was so impressed by this design and saw it as an excellent representation of Manchester’s opportunity for young people that he would like to use this design for future events or printed materials in North Manchester.

Winning Communications

The winner of the Communication Category was the entry that Sue Woodward, Director of the Sharp Project, felt strongly conveyed the community aspect of Sharp Futures and was therefore awarded to Plant Hill Arts College. The entire judging panel was extremely impressed by the way that these pupils communicated with each other and the strong working relationship which had developed in the team. Sue would like to offer this school the opportunity to work with the Sharp Project to develop a mission statement for the project which will be used on the Sharp Futures website. The mural will be unveiled in the Autumn. More details very soon!

If you would like further information about The Sharp Project please click here

The pupils are really proud to wear these badges and the Challenge is going really well. It’s hard for schools to offer something students will want that doesn’t cost a fortune and by tying into desirable brands like Ben Sherman and Crayola means we can offer something that appeals without the designer price tag.
Sandy Fiddler, Attendance Leader at Plant Hill Arts College

The band had another surprise in store announcing an exclusive Kid British gig at the Hard Rock Café for lucky winners of the Challenge. The gig has been arranged as part of the MOTIV Experiences designed to offer school pupils an insight into their future choices. The Channel M Experience at Urbis was also announced as an opportunity to gain an insight into the world of local media for selected pupils.

When you are at school you have no idea of what matters in the real world and no concept of how skipping a day off school here and there is having a long term detrimental effect. I’d be sacked if I missed band rehearsals or gigs!
Band member Simeon

Kid British are tipped for the top after a major record deal was signed with Mercury Records last year, their debut album launching on June 29th and single ‘Sunny Days’ out on April 20th.

The Challenge which is running across over 200 primary and secondary schools in the Spring Term, reaching 80,000 school children in the Greater Manchester region has been heavily supported by sponsors including Crayola, Ben Sherman, Nando’s, Hollywood Bowl, Oldham Athletic FC, FC United. ODEON Cinemas, Hard Rock Café, Channel M and MEN Media.

Education offers choice and without a basic education your life choices are limited. Using music, celebrity and lifestyle brands is a way to gain attention for this really important message.
Director Lee Stanley

Pupils will be awarded badges for each half term in two categories

1. 100% Attendance
2. 100% Attendance for Effort

News Coverage from the 2007 Challenge