I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since the ‘schoolswork’ takeover of Youthwork Magazine! This time last year we were pulling together articles, recording podcasts, designing school calendars, getting together new resources and basically trying to stay sane in what was a very full but exciting month of magazine mayhem! To mark that we have decided to bring together all the material from the August 2010 issue online, so that will be appearing over the next few days and weeks. If you missed the magazine, you will be able to catch up with everything you missed out on, but for those of you who enjoyed the issue last year, here comes a reminder of what we were chatting about a whole year ago and to give you the chance to react, respond and reflect on what has changed for you.

To begin with, the guest editorial:

“Making a Difference?”

About a year ago I realised that my schools work was in trouble. I had got to a point where every assembly I was taking, every lesson I was teaching and every group session I was leading, ended up with the same challenge, which quite frankly was incomplete and meaningless.  The sentiment? Open ended and empty. The challenge I was presenting? ‘Let’s make a difference’. It’s a great thing, and the reason we do what we do, but the problem was it was incomplete. I was not sure what the difference was that I wanted to see, or through my work with the students, was asking them to make.

Of course, we should be making a difference, but we first need to know what the difference is that we want to make. Let me illustrate for you…

I met Jenny* one cold Friday morning walking the corridors of the school while most other students were sat in their maths or science lessons. Jenny, from the moment I saw her, was clearly weighed down and burdened with life. We started to meet once a week for mentoring, yet even by the third or fourth session she wouldn’t utter more than a ‘hello’ or a shrug of the shoulders, and would just sit huddled up in her chair with her arms folded, often with a scarf or other item of clothing obscuring her mouth. One week I invited her to write her thoughts down on paper, and after thinking for a few minutes she stood up and walked out of the room, letting the door fall shut behind her. The following week Jenny wasn’t in school, and I have to admit feeling like I had failed in some way and let Jenny down. However, later on her head of year came and found me and gave me a note from Jenny folded up and put in an envelope. Inside that envelope was a piece of paper overflowing with words that described and articulated beautifully, a very difficult, broken and painful situation, and began to give me a fuller picture of this girl who had previously sat before me, not even allowing me a glimpse into what was going on behind the wall she had built between us. Reading Jenny’s letter that day, I knew that I had been a part of making a difference in helping her to find the words she needed to begin to move on.

Schools work, in all its variety and diversity, is uniquely positioned to impact the lives of young people in ways that see a real difference made.

Jenny’s story is just one of thousands that are starting to be spoken of, talked about and moved on from, in school after school after school around the UK. Not only is it about meeting young people’s emotional needs, but of listening to their spiritually searching questions, connecting with their families, having input into their education, and speaking into the spiritual delivery a school is able to provide. Is that not a great way to see real, transformative difference? If we are not in that space are we missing out?

What we want to challenge in this issue is the assumption that schools work is just about the RE lesson or the assembly or the lunchtime club. It is much bigger than that and more diverse and inclusive of youth work from all kinds of traditions and backgrounds. In his article on page 8, Brad Hawkes talks about his view that if we are working with young people, then we all have a part to play in schools ministry, whether we have thought about it in that way before or not. I happen to agree with him, and believe that we should be taking seriously the call to encourage our young people to live and work out their faith authentically in a place where they are going to spend two thirds of their lives growing up.

So, what of the difference we want to make? Here is where I begin my vision for specific change in schools…

I want to see fewer exclusions; I want to see a reduction in numbers of students turning to self-harm; I want to see places where students can express their anger in helpful ways; I want to see spaces in school where you can share about faith in ways that are meaningful and real; I want to see students restored to wholeness; I want to see teachers finding a space that is safe for them to share and be supported; I want to see schools taking seriously the spiritual agenda; I want to see assemblies that change student’s minds about real issues; I want to see more things than I have space to write on this page and I want to see students living their lives to the full.

What do you want to see? Dream for a moment. Dare to be inspired by a specific, bold vision.

In this issue we speak of a bigger vision, we allude to significant change on the horizon. We just need to remember that it’s often in the small details that we begin to see big vision and real difference, become a reality. Where are you going to start?