10 schools from across the Isle of Wight are in their final stages of preparation for the 2016 Be Your Best Rock Challenge and J Rock events which will take place at the Portsmouth Guildhall next week.
After 21 years registered charity the Be Your Best Foundation continue to successfully produce Rock Challenge events all across the UK. Whilst the primary goal of these events remains to encourage young people to make positive life choices and be their best without the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs, regularly conducted evaluations show proven and evidenced benefits above and beyond these original objectives.
The NSPCC highlight ‘low self-esteem, unhappiness and bullying’ in the most common issues recorded in nearly 300 000 counselling sessions carried out in 2014-15. Rock Challenge events targets these areas of concern and are seen by teachers and students alike as a key part of a young person’s development in resilience, confidence building and self-esteem.
The Rock Challenge events are universally inclusive with secondary schools, colleges, academies, schools catering for students with special needs and independent schools from all backgrounds taking part. Schools from across the county enter in September and next week’s event is the culmination of their hard work.
Both Sandown Bay Academy and Ryde Academy retain their positions in the 2016 Premier Division following their extremely successful entries last year. In 2015, 309 schools were involved in UK Rock Challenge and J Rock across the United Kingdom and Ryde Academy’s performance sailed through the Southern Premier Final to the National Final and received numerous Awards of Excellence in the process. For their 2016 entry Sandown Bay ‘The Power of Imagination’ and Ryde Academy ‘All that glitters is not gold’.
Nettlestone Primary School, Seaview are approaching the J Rock competition for the first time this year and are looking forward to performing their piece ‘Zero to Hero’ based on the story of Hercules.
The performances begin on Monday.
