The confidence Will Phillips wanted young people to find earlier

Confidence before the next transition

October’s DfE research puts recognition, relationships and belonging into the leadership conversation.^[4] Our full analysis of the belonging findings examines the implications across school life. For a sixth form, the question is also personal: where can young people develop the confidence to understand themselves and consider the lives they want to build? The next feature examines that question for post-16 provision.

For Will Phillips, founder of Life by Will and The Reset Schools Programme, that purpose comes from his own experience. In the founder Q&A supplied to School Connection, he describes growing up gay in Northern Ireland during the 1980s and 1990s. His mother was supportive. Outside home, he often felt alone and afraid to be himself. The words of adults and other young people affected the way he understood his own worth.

He describes confidence as something he developed over years. Today, he says, he can speak to hundreds of people because he is comfortable with himself and proud of his work. The ambition behind The Reset is to give young people opportunities to develop some of that self-understanding earlier.

An experience that shaped the programme

That history helps explain the programme’s emphasis on identity, confidence and respectful relationships. Will is speaking from a personal understanding of how difference can become a source of uncertainty, especially when belonging appears to depend on hiding part of yourself. His account also reminds schools how much everyday language can matter to a young person who is listening closely for acceptance.

He wants students who feel unsure of themselves to recognise their strengths, consider outside influences and respond thoughtfully to difficult situations. As he puts it in his founder Q&A: “We need to believe in our young people more.” Adults can offer necessary care while taking an interest in the future a young person hopes to build.

For school leaders, the question is how students experience that belief. Encouragement gains substance when students have time to identify a strength, practise expressing a boundary or consider a decision before pressure makes it harder.

Three influences worth examining

Will identifies social media, peers and adults as three influences he wants the programme to address. His concern about social media centres on comparison: young people may see carefully edited accounts of other lives and feel less attractive, less successful or already behind. He is describing his perspective on those pressures, rather than claiming every student experiences online life in the same way.

He also describes the mixed influence of friendships. Friends may give someone the confidence to be themselves; unkindness and pressure to fit in may encourage concealment. The educational opportunity is to help students examine what respect looks like in ordinary interactions, including the moment when someone needs to disagree or say that a boundary has been crossed.

Adults are part of the picture too. Will recognises that teachers and parents generally want young people to do well. He asks whether repeated pressure to achieve, or assumptions about a preferred future, can leave too little room for the student’s own positive ambitions. That is a prompt for thoughtful conversation with young people, alongside the support and protection adults provide.

Four sessions for reflection and practice

The current programme translates that thinking into four online sessions for students aged 16 to 18. The sessions cover self-awareness and emotional intelligence; confidence, identity and resilience; healthy relationships and communication; and managing pressure and positive decision-making. Each is designed for around an hour, with teacher supervision as students work through the materials.

A welcome video, teaching video, written reflection, knowledge check and personal action task give each session a recurring structure. Students begin with the first two modules. The remaining two open after the cohort has had time to reflect and work through the earlier activities. The teacher’s role includes helping students gain access and encouraging a considered pace.

The educational contribution sits within sixth-form enrichment, personal development and pastoral learning. Its fit depends on what students need to practise and how it connects with the school’s existing offer. The current reporting feature develops that school-level question through the October belonging research and the current enrichment framework.

What schools have asked for

Will is candid about the difficulty of finding the right person in a busy school. He says schools that have taken on the programme have responded positively and asked for straightforward, step-by-step instructions. His account highlights a practical need: staff must be able to understand and use an approach alongside their existing work.

The programme provides teaching materials and an instruction pack, supported by teacher guidance. Four modules are available now. Will is exploring additional student modules and possible teacher modules. Schools should not assume those developments are included in the current licence.

His clearest message before a school begins concerns support. Reflection may feel personal and may upset a student. Staff need to be available, and the school retains responsibility for pupil wellbeing and safeguarding. In his supplied Q&A, Will says his agreement asks schools to confirm that they have a wellbeing programme and a policy for supporting students’ mental health.

Start with the cohort’s learning needs

A useful starting point is a learning need the school can describe. What should students understand or practise? Where will the sessions fit, and what support will surround them? Those questions give leaders a basis for reviewing The Reset’s teacher guide, safeguarding statement and current licence options.

The connected features examine that question through current reporting, school practice and practical next steps. Begin with the post-16 belonging and provision analysis, or follow the supported-learning feature into the staff arrangements around reflection.