Echo Schools 'Healthy Living Award' win for BePART Programme

Birkenhead Sixth Form College’s unique ‘BePART’ life-skills programme has won recognition for its commitment to helping students’ mental health and wellbeing with a special prize at the Liverpool Echo’s ‘Echo School Awards 2017’.

‘BePART’ creators and Psychology teachers at the College, Roy Owen and Amanda Hoey, along with Deputy Principal, Mike Kilbride, received the ‘Healthy Living Award’ at a glamourous ceremony at Liverpool John Moores University’s John Lennon building.

Fittingly, the Faculty for Education at Liverpool John Moores have also been involved with analysing the results of the BePART scheme, which were found to be a resounding success, as the College team look to build upon the foundation blocks already put down in order to help teenagers with the pressures of 21^st Century life.

The six-week programme for all new students was launched at the start of the 2016/17 academic year.

The BePART team: (From left) Roy Owen, Amanda Hoey & Mike Kilbride

Born out of scientific research and proven psychological methods, the sessions focus on the importance of sleep and diet, using gratitude to build resilience and developing both meditative and reflective thought processes to improve concentration and reduce stress and anxiety.

MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field, has called the programme ‘a real innovation’ and BePART also featured on a BBC One documentary which investigated ways to help teenage students deal with the demands of further education.

Receiving the award from the host of the evening, Leanne Campbell of Radio City, BePART creator, Roy Owen, said: “We have worked incredibly hard on developing the BePART programme over the past 18 months and this award highlights that.

“Saying that, however, BePART is still in its infancy and there is still a long way to go in fulfilling the clear potential that this programme has - we must not get complacent and continue to work just as hard.”

The College was also nominated for the Echo’s ‘Active Community Award’ for the impact of the Drama department’s play, ‘Bored’.

Devised alongside Merseyside Police, Drama students wrote and performed their own hard-hitting play focused on highlighting the consequences of antisocial behaviour at the Floral Pavilion in front of 750 local schoolchildren and celebrities.

The students involved, plus Drama teacher Liz Bones, won the Wirral Globe’s ‘Class of the Year’ award for the play last month.