Get your school involved
Find out more about how you can become a school charity partner with The Big Issue Foundation, or gain access to education packs for your students right here.
Find out more about how you can become a school charity partner with The Big Issue Foundation, or gain access to education packs for your students right here.
Becoming a charity partner with The Big Issue Foundation is a great way to encourage social awareness and responsibility among children from a young age, as they learn about the issue of homelessness in the UK, and understand how they can help to support those living on the streets get the help they need to change their lives. Our education packs will further help to develop this important knowledge.
Education Packs
Homelessness is an issue surrounded by a lot of misunderstanding and teaching the next generation about it can seem like a daunting task. That’s why we’ve created some easy to use resources which are ideal for assemblies or class talks. Each pack has a downloadable presentation and plan. You can also find short videos to compliment the packs below.
Video Resources
Here’s some videos to help educate your students about the work of The Big Issue and The Big Issue Foundation. These resources are aimed at Primary Schools and we will have videos available for Secondary Schools in the New Year.
Interview with a Big Issue vendor
Jess from Montem Primary School interviews Big Issue vendor George. Find out about The Big Issue and Big Issue Foundation and how it all works.
What does The Big Issue Foundation do?
Hear from Big Issue vendor George about what The Big Issue Foundation has done to help him and how your school’s fundraising could help more Big Issue vendors!
School Fundraising Ideas
- Non- Uniform Day – Tried and tested and loved by pupils everywhere! In return for a donation, wear your own clothes to school. Make it even more fun by setting a theme – come dressed as your favourite hero or Disney character. Or, when Halloween is around the corner, come dressed in your scariest attire!
- Coin Drive – Decide on the value of the coin you are going to collect, for example, 5 pence or 20 pence, and simply gather donations from friends and family, teachers, and neighbours – everyone you know! Involve your class or even the whole school. You could even give a prize to whoever raises the most money.
- Give Something Up – Encourage children to choose something to give up, such as sweets, fizzy drinks or crisps for a week or a month and encourage them to ask friends and family to sponsor them.
- Spelling Bee Competition – Make a simple spelling test fun by holding a competition between teams or individuals, asking for a small donation to enter the competition.
- Hold a Talent Show – Perhaps one of your pupils thinks she should be the next Kylie, or thinks he should be in Diversity? Hold a talent contest for them to showcase their singing, dancing, acting or magic skills! You could make it ‘TV Show’ style by nominating judges to pick the winners.
- Act of Kindness – Get your class or even the whole school involved in ‘donating’ acts of kindness: household chores, litter picking, car washing or singing songs in a nursing home, to name but a few. This is a great way to support our heroes and the local community at the same time.
Organise your own Sleep Out?
There’s no getting around it, homelessness isn’t an easy thing to talk about with young people (or adults). The Big Sleep Out is a great way to introduce the topic, to help your group understand the issues of homelessness, and to find out what The Big Issue Foundation is doing to help. It’s also a lot of fun, so why not find out how to volunteer to do some youth group fundraising? We have a load of free stuff to help you organise your night, such as games, activities, videos and more. You can download most of the resources here.
What makes a good fundraising event for kids?
If you want to hold a successful fundraising event for kids, it needs to be engaging, fun, safe and rewarding. From sports tournaments and obstacle courses, to readathons and non-uniform days, a good fundraising event for kids needs to be well-organised and promoted to both kids and parents. It’s also important to that being involved is inexpensive, which will ensure everyone can get involved and that your event reaches a wider audience.
How long should a fundraising event for kids last?
Fundraising events for kids don’t have or need a set time period. Of course, if it’s during school hours, it’s beneficial to host the event during only part of the day. As long as the event is engaging, there’s no reason it can’t be a day-long event.
How to organise a charity event for kids?
Before you begin planning the actual event, you need to have fundraising goal and budget in place. Once you’ve established this, you can then choose your activities for fundraising and gather volunteers, staff and contributors to plan and set up the event in advance. You need to consider what activities will be on offer – will there be food? Will there be entertainment? Is there an itinerary? When you have completed the organisation your event, you need to promote it.
How to promote a charity event for kids?
To ensure children and their parents are prepared for a fundraising event, you need to make sure they’re aware of it in the first place. You can send out flyers or letters, as well as sending a press release to local press and sharing the event through social media. When you promote your event, you need to remember to include who, what, when, where and how.