Fresh Starts: Kingdom Provision in Education
Rachel Martin is seeing the Kingdom of God impact young people in the secondary school where she works. Below she shares her story with Jubilee+ (this article was originally written for the Catalyst blog, available here).
I work in a secondary school in the Black Country (just outside Birmingham). Last summer I was given the opportunity to set up an internal alternative provision - this is essentially a separate school for teenagers who have significant trauma and behaviour concerns and would otherwise be permanently excluded from school. Most local authorities have separate alternative provisions for their young people, but these tend not to be funded well, and pupils rarely leave with any qualifications or post-16 provision.
During the set up, we saw God provide in miraculous ways. I sent a message on my church Whatsapp group asking if anyone had any spare furniture and appliances, and was given 2 fridges, 2 sofas, a microwave, kettle and toaster. A massive band of volunteers from church supported me with painting/ building work, ferrying around furniture and helping me rearrange 3 classrooms. My colleagues were blown away by this and our school finance team considered changing their working hours to a Sunday to see if they could get more free stuff from church for the wider school!
I wanted to ensure the young people were given as many opportunities as possible and set them up for a positive future. I wanted the ARRCC (Aspiration, Resilience, Respect and Care Centre) to be marked by a God like generosity; we provide everything for the students, all their equipment, uniform, computers, breakfast, lunch, etc.
Right from the offset, we asked the students to help us shape the culture of the provision, we sat round a table and wrote out the ‘ARRCC family values’. One of which was “as many fresh starts as we need!”, I spoke about the bible verse ‘new mercies every morning’ and have referenced this several times throughout the year. In fact more recently, I was challenging a student on their behaviour and they said to me “Miss M, I don’t think I should have a punishment because...new mercies!”. It was very surreal to have a student quote scripture at me to try and get out of detention!
The work itself is exhausting and tiring, but SO rewarding. Each of my students is their own success story, and I believe genuinely shows the power of the gospel. All of our students, bar one, have increased their attendance in school by over 50%. Prior to this year, none of the children were attending school for a full day and now all of them are coming into school every day for the whole day. We have seen significant improvement in their learning levels and we have 5 out of 6 of our year 11s applying for colleges.
One of our year 11s was very involved in gang crime, including drug running and county lines. He would go missing for days at a time and hadn’t attended school for more than 2 days at a time in 3 years. He now has 90% attendance, is doing work experience at a mechanics and is due to start an apprenticeship with them next month. He has not had a missing episode since starting with us.
Giving these children what they need and what they were designed for – unconditional love, consistent and persistent forgiveness, and hope, as well as feeding and clothing them has transformed their lives.
I have recently been asked to double the provision for this age group (15 and 16 year olds) and create a provision for the younger half of the school (11-13 year olds). This is SO exciting and really feels like a God opportunity, but is a massive task. I am excited to watch God provide again and to partner with him in loving more young people.
Written by Rachel Martin
