How L2L Has Changed My Life

Alison Knowles

Every once in a while, a person gets an opportunity to talk about something they really believe in and feel passionate about. For Sophie Staniforth and I, it was this past week.

We were lucky enough to participate in an online conference for educators, researchers, local authorities and civil servant that is entitled: Empowering Young People 2 Change the World. The conference is vast, it’s exciting and though provoking. On Wednesday, Sophie and I got the chance to share our perspective on alternative provision, what is offer our students, their families, schools, society.

I talked about how alternative provision changed my life. It changed the lives of my children. Do they go to alternative provision? No. Do they have any recognised additional needs or struggle to attend school? Also no. However, working at Launch2Learning has dramatically changed my life and the lives of my children. It has changed how my husband and I parent; it has changed the way we show up for our children and how we have let go of the blueprint we had created in our minds for our girls. Alternatively, we’ve tried to give them support instead of steering them towards an outcome that we desire; space and time to become who they’re meant to be.

Our staff are amazing. They see our students and in turn our amazing students see our staff. Ultimately our mission is to look after one another; to support one another to reach the goals that will help us have the best today and tomorrow that we can have. We believe in each other, and we see each other as the humans that we are. Yes, we make mistakes, but here is how we repair relationships; here is how we try again when we get things wrong; here is how to be kind and considerate and look out for one another.

While we don’t believe that we are the right place for our students forever, what we do believe is that while they are with us, it is our responsibility to teach through actions as well as words and to prepare them for the world as it is and the world they would like to create.

So, Wednesday, Sophie and I have the honour of meeting and speaking to like-minded people. It is a reminder that most people are good; there is hope and promise in the world and, what we see as our tiny corner of education and the world is in fact a place that inspires others.

Below is a word cloud created by the 420+ people that listened as we spoke about how we see the world: