Vasiliki, Achieve
The Achieve programme has helped Vasiliki to manage her anxiety, build her skills and become less fearful of mistakes. Her school attendance, participation and grades have all improved as a result.
Vasiliki, 15, used to find school stressful. She found it hard to talk to teachers and struggled to work in pairs or groups with other students. As someone who worries a lot and is prone to panic attacks, she would often skip school on days when there were tests or exams.
‘I would be absent from school a lot,’ Vasiliki recalls, ‘I didn’t want to come when I knew we would have a test.’
The Achieve programme has empowered Vasiliki to better manage her worries. Delivered in schools in Greece through our partners The Tipping Point, Achieve offers practical, activity-based learning in small groups, helping students develop the core skills and confidence they need to thrive at school and in later life.
Practice and resilience
‘In the Achieve programme, our teacher always asked us to sit together in a group and work together as a team. In the past I never wanted to move from my seat and work with others,’ Vasiliki remembers. ‘Now, I do it without her even asking.’
With plenty of hands-on practice and support from her Achieve mentors, Vasiliki has gradually built up her capacity to tolerate mistakes, and her confidence around speaking and working with others.
‘The programme helped me a lot in managing stress and anxiety in school,’ Vasiliki explains. ‘I understand now that I may make a mistake and that this is normal, we are human, and that if I make a mistake there will be a next time where I will get it right.’
Freed from her fear of failure and buoyed by her growing confidence, Vasiliki’s approach to school has been transformed. She is now comfortable managing tests, putting her hand up in class, joining or initiating discussions and even knocking on the staffroom door to speak to teachers. And as her absences have fallen, her grades have risen.
‘In class, teachers ask us to come up to the board and solve exercises or respond to their questions, or sometimes they ask us while we are seated. I never wanted to do this in any of my lessons, even if I knew the answers,’ Vasilki recalls, ‘After Achieve, I can answer their questions.’
Benefits beyond the classroom
Vasiliki’s newfound openness has not only boosted her attendance and grades, it has also improved her general wellbeing and helped her build stronger family relationships. ‘I am a happier person now and I am not so closed off, in school or with my parents,’ Vasiliki explains. ‘I don’t have as many school absences; I am not avoiding exams.’
Vasiliki can already see the immediate impact of her progress in her daily life, but she is well aware of the future benefits too, especially in terms of coping with stressful situations when jobhunting or in her future workplace. ‘I believe I will be more confident and relaxed in the future,’ she says, ‘I will not worry in the case of a job interview, for example.’
And Vasilki already has an idea about what that job might be. ‘I would like to do something similar to Achieve when I grow up. I would like to help students like me,’ she says. ‘In the beginning I didn’t want to come to Achieve, I didn’t want to take part. In the end I really liked it, and I learnt a lot… All schools should have Achieve as a subject.’