Prestatyn High School honoured for ground-breaking campaign

The Council has congratulated four Year 11 pupils from Prestatyn High School for their award winning campaign around anti-discrimination.

The pupils were recognised at the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner’s Community Awards ceremony, hosted on Thursday 16 June and were honoured for their ‘ Discrimination. It stops with me’ campaign.

The school has started a new curriculum called Social Responsibility in response to the need for more education around this area and addressing matters proactively, the school has amended its procedures for dealing with discrimination, improved monitoring of discrimination and has held a festival of culture and diversity this year. The students have met weekly with a youth worker and have shaped the work that is being done.

Neil Foley, Headteacher of Prestatyn High School, said: “The young people came up with the campaign's advertising materials, they have presented to pupils lower down the school to get their interest in the campaign, they have visited primary schools to educate younger children around discrimination and promote the high school's campaign. It has been through their work with other pupils in the lower school that the idea of the festival grew.

“They have conducted surveys with pupils and with staff and have also presented to school governors and as a result, the governors have half termly feedback on the progress of the campaign.

“These pupils really are incredible. They are dedicated and motivated to impact change. Working with these amazing young people is an absolute privilege in the face of what's been the hardest couple of years in education for pupils and staff, these pupils are striving to make our community a better place whilst at the same time as preparing for their GCSEs. We can't stress enough how brilliant these young people really are. They deserve recognition for their work. Their school is so proud of them and their community should know what truly inspirational young people they are.

Councillor Gill German, Cabinet Lead Member for Education and Children’s Services, said: “This is a fantastic achievement. I have been really impressed with this initiative right from the start and this award is hugely deserved.

“There is a lot of ground-breaking work going on at Prestatyn High around community and social responsibility and it is really exciting that this work, led by the young people themselves, has been recognised as best practice.

“This is a wonderful example of the enthusiastic and committed approach that our children and young people are taking in their bid for everyone to be treated equally and fairly. This work really is inspirational and I must thank and commend Prestatyn High for their efforts in getting this important campaign off the ground, particularly during what has been such a challenging period for education as a whole.”