Leeds Rhinos Foundation was delighted to support a recent event run by the Social Mobility Business Partnership charity, aimed at providing secondary school students from low income backgrounds with inspiring experiences and tips to boost their resilience.
For one week every year, the charity takes Year 12 pupils into different organisations, including local sports clubs and top law firms, to provide work insight and training opportunities that help them to gain confidence and improve their employability skills.
The group, consisting of 50 teenagers from across the local region, visited Leeds Rhinos Foundation at Emerald Headingley Stadium on Friday 9th August to take part in a series of workshops based on the topics of resilience and goal-setting.
Led by trained professionals, including Leeds Rhinos Foundation’s Project Tutor Janet Sylvester, the sessions combined presentations with interactive games and activities to help develop the students’ skills, knowledge and understanding to better manage pressure, challenge or difficulty in their lives and learn how to bounce back from adversity.
The day also included a quick look around Emerald Headingley Stadium and a presentation ceremony with former Leeds Rhinos player Brett Delaney.
Rose Firth, Operations Manager for SMBP, said: “Each SMPB cluster partners with a local sporting body, and so we were delighted to get on board with Leeds Rhinos Foundation to host today’s event.
“This particular sort of day is so important to the students, understanding that we all get knockbacks in life. We’d like to think that they will go away with some techniques that will make them think differently when that happens so they can focus more, keep a positive mindset and still have the confidence to aim high.
“It embodies a lot of what the Foundation do anyway, and we’ve always found that the team are on board and willing to engage with our charity, which is fantastic.
“Students love coming to Leeds Rhinos because it’s often new and exciting. Ordinarily some of them wouldn’t get the chance to come to the stadium, so it’s a great opportunity to look around, see the pitch and gain an insight into what life is like here. We’ve had a really great day here.”
Social Mobility Business Partnership is a collaboration of over 130 commercial organisations, professional services firms and professional sports clubs, working across 18 towns and cities. Since 2014, the charity has grown from offering opportunities to 20 students in London, to over 500 student places across the UK in 2019, in cities such as Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds.
For more information, visit https://smbp.org.uk/