CASE STUDY | St John’s School Take On Yellow Belt Challenge
Eleven students from St John’s RC School in Essex have recently embarked on the Yellow Belt Challenge run by The Fighting Chance Project.
The Yellow Belt Challenge is a British Judo partnered programme that works with grass roots community Judo clubs to engage young people from disadvantaged and vulnerable backgrounds. St John’s Roman Catholic School is a school for boys and girls with moderate/severe learning difficulties with additional language disorders.
The Fighting Chance Project believes that by introducing young people to the positive activity of judo, they can make new friends, learn new skills, earn grades and build greater levels of confidence. This can help them go on to achieve greater levels of success in other aspects of their lives. Our students will learn how to throw opponents using different techniques in the Judo syllabus as well as learning how to land properly so as not to hurt themselves when landing.
Eleven students (Paul Steeley, Marcus Osbourne, Hassan Magala, Dave Kazumba, Mathew Chong, Terrance Tarrow, Brian Allen, Liam Donogun, Sammuel Ologun, Louis Bixby and Nabil Newar) have all undertook the challenge of progressing from their initial white belt up to a yellow belt in a specified amount of time.
The scheme was introduced to the school by PE Teacher Roger Woods, who explained:
“As the head coach of Equinox Judo Club, I was introduced to the Yellow Belt Challenge for a couple of my club students. I was so impressed with the scheme that I then approached Karen French to see if the scheme was open to Special Schools in particular, St Johns, that has students with mild to severe learning difficulties.”
“Karen agreed and we began the scheme in October last year with an aim of grading them in May (All students will leave in July as 18-19 year old graduates). I wasn’t sure how the scheme would go so I sent out letters of consent to parents explaining that I only have space to coach 12. I had 21 replies out of a possible 26 and so gave places to the first 12 that replied.”
“The challenge has been such a success that we have young people talking about Judo on a daily basis and four of our students are now training at different external clubs (Equinox, Kelmscott and Stratford). The scheme was also named by one of our parents in an Ofsted report that happened a couple of months ago outlining the opportunities that her son had been given as a result of the challenge.”
Louis Bixby, who is now training at Equinox commented “Judo gives me confidence, I meet lots of new friends at the club.” When asked about his aspirations Louis said “I just want to be like the other guys, maybe I could be a black belt one day and fight for England.”
