Oasis Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club at Oasis Academy Brightstowe was started by Nikky Mungeam, Hub Development Coordinator, and two threesixty students who are spending their gap year volunteering with Oasis.
.jpg "Oasis Academy Brightstowe")
The Club is open from 7.30 - 8.30 am every weekday. Around 20 students come to chat and play board games with a healthy breakfast available if they want it.
Speaking about the club, Nikky said, "It's an intentional time of giving attention to students at the beginning of the day. We get some of the most vulnerable students coming, some who would turn up for school at that time anyway because they have nowhere else to go.
When you see the students at the beginning of the day and get chatting, that often naturally leads to getting involved in their lives in other ways too. I read somewhere that the best thing you can give a young person is your full attention. It's amazing how much you can discover about someone over a game of Connect 4!"
Running the Breakfast Club is an important part of Oasis' ethos of holistic well-being. School life has not been easy for students at Oasis Academy Brightstowe in the past; before it became an Oasis Academy, the school experienced seven head teachers in five years and had a bad reputation in the local community.
Since becoming an Oasis Academy the situation has dramatically improved - attendance has gone up, exclusions have gone down and behaviour has improved - even the local residents have noticed the difference now students are in school all day instead of hanging out on the local estates.
Additional activities like the Breakfast Club ensure that as many children as possible are being cared for, and not just within main school hours. Nikky says, "Students come because they know there are dependable adults there who listen to them and engage with them. I think that's the best thing we can give a young person. No one stands out in the cold before school anymore and when they don't show up for breakfast we ask them if they're okay. Knowing that they are valued and missed is so important to them. For me, that's what the Breakfast Club is all about."