What is CALM?

Hi! I’m June, and I’m one of the founders of the CALM project. So. What are we?

We are a youth-led project aiming to improve the education system. That is, if you can truly call it that. The definition of system is “a group of interacting or interrelated elements that work together according to a set of rules to form a unified whole”. And honestly, I’m not sure that’s an accurate label for the way schools are collaborating in Scotland. Primary schools teach at different standards, kids of all ages are given work that is too difficult or too easy for them, and classroom disruptions completely ruin some young people’s experiences of learning.

So what are we trying to do about it?

I would be lying if I said that we’ve come up with a coherent one-size-fits-all solution. At our last meeting, there were several suggestions relating to poverty, social media, parenting, and the way kids themselves are taught, but we couldn’t quite come up with a proposal. I know. Mildly inconvenient.

But we have a couple of asks from you.

Our first plan is to approach the head teacher of our school with essays and data relevant to the pupils under his care. But after that, once we believe we have enough evidence that the current “system” is broken, we intend to approach the government. To do either of these, we need as much information as we can get.

We’ve made a form for you to fill out, and it should take a maximum of ten minutes, unless you’re really getting into the questions. These results are anonymous. Here is the link: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=oyzTzM4Wj0KVQTctawUZKenooILymadEl2AmybKrdDpUQ1lNVjVTWEFMMUFXRFgwMFNFM0tIWkpOTC4u

If you’d like to dive deeper, we have an email here. You can send questions, suggestions, essays or just a couple of sentences. We are looking mostly for YOUR experience of school, in where it has failed and succeeded, but if you fancy having a rant at the entire high school thing then go for it! The only thing we ask is that you keep it swear-free. TheStudyStop@outlook.com

Essays should choose one or more of our four categories to focus on:

Challenge

Accessibility

Lifestyle

Mental health

Thank you! Any pieces of writing should include where you are happy for it to be used (sent to the government (eventually)/posted on the website/used with our head teacher to advocate for our school (if we believe it to be a valid comparison))