Prince William is changing how homelessness is being taught in schools

Prince William is making the case for teaching pupils how to prevent homelessness in schools as his Homewards programme aims to address the issue in classrooms.

The royal’s five-year mission to prove that homelessness can be ended has taken him into schools in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole – one of six locations where Homewards is testing out solutions.

Prince William met Mark Avoth, principal of The Bourne Academy secondary school in Bournemouth, alongside students including 17-year-old Jaydn Hardy and Scarlett Gubb, 18, to hear how the school is preventing youth homelessness.

The school is one of the first to bring a housing rights worker into the classroom, working with housing charity Shelter. That has seen youngsters learn about renting rights in workshops to prepare them for when they leave school and their parents’ home.

“We used to go to school, we’d come out of school, the expectation was you got a job, you got a mortgage, you had 2.2 kids and that’s your life. That’s very different now for the younger generations,” said Avoth.

“So we felt that workshops around tenancy, around HMOs, and around deposits were really important because we felt this is where the lack of knowledge for the young people going forward is.”

The Bourne Academy is benefitting from Shelter’s @Home pilot project, which is currently being evaluated by Bournemouth University.

That sees a housing rights worker, funded through Homewards, placed in the school to support families who may be struggling but are not currently accessing existing services.

The aim is to provide tailored advice and support as well as delivering housing rights workshops to students, families and staff.

The school is also working with Centrepoint – the youth homelessness charity which counts Prince William as a patron – to deliver Upstream. Upstream involves using questionnaires in school to identify children who may be at risk of homelessness to offer extra support.

The 14-16 Curriculum Team, funded by Homewards, is also designing a new, tailored curriculum for 14–16-year‑olds at risk of exclusion or falling out of education, employment or training.

The workshops on renting rights have had a big impact on Hardy.

“I’ve said to my friends for ages, like, why don’t schools teach things about tenancies and renting and things like that?” said Hardy, who is aiming to join the RAF.

“We are moving out soon because we’re in year 12 and 13. So it just allows us to think about how we’re going to move out, when we’re going to move out, what’s right and wrong. It just gives us a more central understanding, because obviously moving out by yourself is a little bit daunting when you first go to do it.”

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Gubb has told Big Issue she and her mother had waited 14 years for a council home after experiencing overcrowding.

She believes homelessness is overlooked and that teaching the topic in schools could prevent the issue more widely.

“I think it is a really scary thing. After being at your home and being where you’re comfortable for so long, you don’t ever think about tenancies,” said Gubb, who described the experience of meeting Prince William as “surreal”.

“I think it’s such an important thing to learn because, if you don’t have that knowledge, you’re more vulnerable to the real world.

She added: “I’m so glad that our school has recognised it as being such a big problem, because I feel like it’s so underestimated.”

The government is currently developing a new national curriculum, including foundational subjects like maths and English but also subjects that prepare for the changing world of work.

The final curriculum will be published in spring next year. With plenty to fit in, where is the room for homelessness?

“It’s a really good question and I think Prince William asked the same one,” said Avoth. 

“The accountability system for schools is quite rigorous in terms of: young people are placed under pressure to do certain exams, get certain results, and then our destination figures are reported and our exam results are reported. 

“So it takes quite brave leadership, if you like, and brave curriculum leaders to take a step away and say: ‘Well, actually, this is just as important’.”

Homewards is testing out solutions to homelessness in six local areas across the UK with the view of rolling them out nationwide. Big Issue is a Homewards sector partner.

Whether schools across the country follow The Bourne Academy’s lead will depend on the lessons learned there. But the school has already seen an impact.

“We’ve been contacted by parents this morning on email because of the coverage, we didn’t know they were facing these issues,” added Avoth. “Raising the profile has already had an impact on prevention for certain families, We’ve contacted and referred this morning. Reframing the narrative around that word [homelessness] is important too.”

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