Hear from our participants…
Aleena
Aleena had just started her first year at the University of Leeds. She “felt all over the place… there was so much to do… and thanks to Covid it was the first time I had studied for exams since school. It was difficult just to keep going. It was like my work-life balance was about to tip over...”
Simon
“The first thing I tell other businesses about Grit,” says Octopus Group CEO, Simon Rogerson, “is, get involved! It is a genuinely brilliant experience – eye-opening on loads of levels and as powerful for professionals as it is for young people… it’s is a great partnership that really reflects who we are at Octopus
Chris
Chris is a teacher and school leader who first came across Grit when he saw them in the Channel 4 programme: Ballet Hoo “I remember thinking, “This is extraordinary stuff….” and I thought the programme had the potential to make a real difference in my school…”
Michael
Michael was a mature student at the University of Hull. He was feeling very demoralized and was seriously thinking about leaving. The course work was coming at him from all sides. It was hard to make friends and he was feeling completely worn out …
Dawn
Dawn has been a senior leader in a variety of local authority settings for over 20 years. She first came across Grit in 2004.
“From the very first Grit senior management session I was captivated. It felt incredibly risky to go through a process where the hierarchies were dissolved and I was just another participant along with everybody else…”
Larissa
Larissa did a three-day Grit programme in her first year at Nottingham Trent University. She wasn’t handling it well.. she couldn’t keep up.
But now “there are no limitations to me now. I am able to accomplish all that I want to accomplish. So my advice is, if you want to tap into who you really are, Grit is the perfect place to be.”
Mark
Mark is part of the academic team at NTU, he participated in a Grit Personal Tutor training in 2020.
“The power of Grit was how it got me to relate how I operate (as a tutor) to where students, as individuals, are coming from. It got me to reflect on how every student has their own unique approach to learning … I’m finding different ways to connect and engage with students…
Daud
Daud took part in the Grit Black Leadership workshop at Nottingham Trent University.
“It wasn’t until I’d done the Grit programme that I realised how much I’d been longing to belong. Sure, I had connected with other students but that was only on the basis of being at the same institution. It was all very one dimensional. After Grit I was seeing things in three dimensions.”
Sonia
Sonia is an Achievement Analyst at Southampton Solent University.
“It was unexpected. It gave me new perspective on my job, one I hadn’t considered before. Grit has reframed the way I go into conversations and interactions”
Liam
Liam was in year 10 at a school in Warwickshire when he did a Grit programme.
As Liam puts it himself, “I was going off the rails.” There were days when he didn’t go to school at all, just hung around the streets with other young people getting involved in anti-social behaviour.