Wallasey school wins gold medal for community engagement

Students who kept children away from County Lines gangs with community initiatives including jiu-jitsu classes have won gold at the prestigious Goldsmiths’ Awards for Community Engagement. 

The Mosslands School in Wallasey was awarded the gold medal over eight other schools that attended the final on Tuesday 27 June, after 172 secondary schools from across the UK originally entered the competition. 

The school received a gold medal and a cheque for £3,000 to be used for increasing the impact of the school’s charitable activities. 

Created in 2018, the Goldsmiths’ Awards for Community Engagement recognise and celebrate the extracurricular efforts that the schools across the UK make to support their local communities through volunteer work and charitable initiatives. 

Heats were held in March to determine the finalists, who had run projects focused on a variety of local and national issues.   

The Mosslands School’s local area has been seriously impacted by County Lines gangs, notably when 26-year-old Elle Edwards was shot in a Wallasey pub on Christmas Eve, generating national news headlines.   

To help keep young people away from crime, Mosslands students have for the past three years worked with Merseyside Police to deliver its Active Citizenship project.  

This involves after-school sessions once a week to engage young people with volunteering, Scouts, the police cadets, and martial arts. 360 young people will be involved with the project this calendar year. 

Ferryhill School in County Durham was awarded the silver medal, and the other schools were presented with finalist certificates after standing out from so many entries to reach the awards competition’s ultimate stage. 

Each of the eight finalist schools gave presentations about their community work to a panel of judges and an audience of the other schools and event volunteers. The judges also quizzed the pupils at stands they had set up in the Goldsmiths’ gilded Livery Hall. 

Speaking at the event, Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, Professor Charles Mackworth-Young CVO, told the schools: “By being here today, you have been recognised for the work you have been doing, so congratulations.  

“Ferryhill School was named runner-up for the huge amount of initiative and inventiveness and engagement with the local community.  

“But the gold prize went to Mosslands and a group of students who have shown a huge amount of engagement and initiative with a very challenging local population and demonstrated how they really make a difference to lives in their area.” 

Awards chair and judge Judith Cobham-Lowe OBE commented: “It was wonderful to welcome the finalists to Goldsmiths’ Hall on Tuesday. Each of these schools have made a remarkable contribution to their local community and all eight of them ought to be applauded.  

“The finalists each demonstrated how they have gone above and beyond to engage with their local community, despite problems caused by deprivation or crime. Their work is precisely what the Goldsmiths’ Awards for Community Engagement are here to recognise.”