How YouthShoots works with Schools and Multi Academy Trusts
Every school is different.
That’s why YouthShoots doesn’t believe in simply delivering the same session everywhere.
We work with schools to understand their pupils, priorities and challenges before designing the right programme.
One of the greatest strengths of the YouthShoots model is its ability to bring young people together from across multiple schools within a Multi-Academy Trust, creating a powerful shared learning experience while remaining highly cost-effective. Rather than delivering the same training separately in each school, YouthShoots can work with Trusts to bring groups of pupils together at a central venue, allowing up to 60 young people per day from different academies to participate in an engaging and impactful programme of learning.
Primary
The YouthShoots model helps younger pupils develop the foundations of emotional wellbeing through engaging, age-appropriate experiences that build emotional literacy, confidence, resilience and positive relationships. By creating opportunities for reflection, discussion and participation, children learn to recognise emotions, develop healthy coping strategies and build the confidence to express themselves positively within their school community.
Secondary
Within secondary settings, the YouthShoots model provides a framework for exploring the challenges young people face as they navigate adolescence. Through pupil-centred learning, peer leadership opportunities and practical resources, students develop resilience, strengthen their mental wellbeing, explore healthy relationships and gain strategies for managing the academic, social and online pressures that form part of modern life.
Transition
The move from primary to secondary school is one of the most significant periods of change in a young person's education. The YouthShoots model can be used to help pupils understand and prepare for this transition by building confidence, reducing anxiety, strengthening social connections and equipping them with practical strategies to navigate new environments, expectations and responsibilities successfully.
Digital Resilience
In an increasingly connected world, the YouthShoots model helps young people develop a healthy and balanced relationship with technology. Through discussion, reflection and youth-led action, pupils explore online pressures, digital wellbeing, social media influences, online safety and responsible digital citizenship. The focus is not simply on avoiding risks, but on helping young people make informed choices and develop positive digital habits that support their wellbeing.
Staff Wellbeing
The principles that underpin YouthShoots are equally valuable for adults within the school community. By working alongside staff, the model helps create a shared understanding of wellbeing, resilience and pupil voice. In both supporting young people in the training days or from our specialised staff wellbeing workshops, staff gain practical tools and approaches that can support both their own wellbeing and their ability to foster positive, supportive environments where young people feel safe, heard and empowered to thrive.
A Whole School Approach
At its heart, YouthShoots is not a collection of separate programmes but a flexible model that can be applied across the whole school community. By combining engaging learning experiences, meaningful pupil voice, peer-led leadership, practical resources and ongoing support, YouthShoots helps schools create cultures where wellbeing, resilience and positive change are embedded into everyday life.
What we teach
Mental Wellbeing
Coping Strategies
Mental Wellbeing
Understanding mental wellbeing, recognising emotions, reducing stigma and knowing where to seek support. Young people explore practical ways to look after their mental health and build greater self-awareness and confidence.
Resilience
Coping Strategies
Mental Wellbeing
Developing practical strategies for managing challenges, setbacks and change. Participants learn how to adapt positively to difficult situations, build perseverance and develop a growth mindset.
Coping Strategies
Coping Strategies
Coping Strategies
Understanding what helps us maintain positive wellbeing and how to develop healthy habits. Sessions focus on identifying personal strengths, managing stress and creating routines that support long-term wellbeing.
Healthy Relationships
Building Our Future Selves
Healthy Relationships
Exploring behaviour, communication, respect, boundaries and the impact our actions can have on others. Young people develop the skills needed to build positive relationships both in person and online.
Digital Resilience
Building Our Future Selves
Healthy Relationships
Understanding online behaviour, social media, cyberbullying, privacy and the relationship between digital life and wellbeing. Participants learn how to stay safe online, make informed choices and develop healthy digital habits.
Building Our Future Selves
Building Our Future Selves
Building Our Future Selves
Helping young people think about who they want to become and the choices that can help them get there. Through reflection and goal-setting, participants explore aspirations, opportunities and pathways for future success.
Collaborative School Improvement Across Every Academy
A Consistent Approach Across Every School
YouthShoots provides a shared framework for wellbeing and resilience that can be implemented across all schools within a Trust. This creates consistency in messaging, language and outcomes, while still allowing individual schools the flexibility to adapt activities and priorities to meet the needs of their own pupils and communities.
Through Practical Resources
Equipping schools with age-appropriate ‘Propagation Packs’ on Mental Wellbeing and Online Safety, enabling staff to reinforce key learning, extend discussions and sustain impact long after the training has ended.
Developing Pupil-Led Resilience, Not Just Delivering Interventions
Rather than relying solely on short-term wellbeing interventions, YouthShoots helps schools build a sustainable culture of resilience. Through the training of Resilience Reps, young people become active leaders and role models, helping to embed positive wellbeing practices across their school and empowering peers to support one another.
Through Pupil-Led Action
Empowering young people to identify challenges, influence change and lead meaningful initiatives within their own schools. By placing pupils at the centre of decision-making, schools strengthen engagement, ownership and student voice.
Scalable, Supported and Measurable Impact
Designed specifically to work across multiple schools, YouthShoots offers a scalable model supported by training resources, ongoing guidance and impact measurement. Trust leaders gain a practical and cost-effective way to strengthen pupil wellbeing at scale, while being able to evidence engagement, outcomes and progress across their schools.
Through Impact Reporting
Delivering clear evidence of participation, engagement and outcomes, giving school and Trust leaders valuable insights into programme reach, pupil development and areas of impact.
The Result
A sustainable, scalable approach to wellbeing that grows from the pupils upwards. By developing confident young leaders, strengthening school communities and creating a consistent Trust-wide culture, YouthShoots helps turn wellbeing from an initiative into a lasting movement for positive change.
Legislation, Curriculum and Policy Alignment
Our Commitment: Relevant. Responsible. Up to date. “Evidence, Curriculum & Policy”
YouthShoots programmes are designed to complement the priorities schools are already working towards, including mental wellbeing, resilience, relationships, online safety and pupil voice.
Our programmes are developed with current education guidance, legislation and regulatory developments in mind.
We work alongside schools and Trusts to support their existing whole-school approaches rather than adding another disconnected initiative.
DfE Senior Mental Health Leads and PHE’s Core Principles
YouthShoots engagement is designed to assist and support Senior Mental Health Leads as they deliver a whole school approach to enhancing resilience and wellbeing.
Core Training also embeds and advances 3 of the 8 Core Principles of Public Health England’s current “Promoting Children and Young People’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing” policy: (1) curriculum teaching and learning to promote resilience and support social and emotional learning (2) ethos and environment that promotes respect and values diversity (3) enabling student voice to influence decisions.
RSE Curriculum
Our Core training is specifically designed to align with and complement the current Relationships and Sex Education statutory guidance that all schools must deliver in the areas of “Internet Safety & Harms” and “Mental Wellbeing”.
Online Safety Act 2023 and Ofcom Regulation
YouthShoots monitors the evolution of the implementation of the protections under the Online Safety Act 2023 as guidance and codes of practice are consulted upon and published by Ofcom, the online safety regulator, to inform the core training and its evaluation of the impact of the training.
This includes the recent “A Positive Vision for Media Literacy: Ofcom’s Three-Year Media Literacy Strategy” (7th October 2024) and Ofcom’s “Evaluation Toolkit: Outcomes, Indicators and Surveys Questions Bank” (9 September 2024).
“The training was excellent because it taught us how to help our friends and other people and how to de-escalate situations.”
Primary Pupil, South Essex Academy Trust.