HCCS News: ACT NOW Conference

By Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School

In July, Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School welcomed young people and professionals from across the area for the annual ACT NOW Conference - a day dedicated to safeguarding, but importantly, one where young people weren’t simply there to listen. They were leading the conversation.

ACT NOW is a Cheshire East Council conference, organised and initiated by the Safeguarding Children in Education Settings (SCIES) team, which has been bringing schools, young people and safeguarding professionals together for a number of years.

This year, Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School and its young people were delighted to be asked to take on the baton and help facilitate the conference, working alongside SCIES to create a day centred around the voices and experiences of young people.

The event also brought together representatives from across the wider Cheshire East safeguarding partnership, council leaders and the police, creating an important opportunity for those involved in safeguarding children and young people to hear directly from them.

Students came together from Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School, Springfield School in Crewe, Brine Leas School in Nantwich, Ruskin Community High School in Crewe and Sandbach High School, bringing different experiences, ideas and perspectives to the day.

Under the theme “This Is My Voice”, students shared presentations, experiences and campaigns around issues affecting their generation, including mental health, social media, body image, discrimination, stereotypes, online safety and harm outside the home.

I caught up with Holmes Chapel Comprehensive students Scarlett, Jesse, Sophie, Brianna, Matilda and Jemima, who played an important role in helping to organise and run this year’s conference.

Between them, they helped prepare materials, write the opening and closing speeches, introduce schools, organise quizzes and activities and keep everything running smoothly throughout the day. Brianna also baked cakes, with donations going towards her fundraising for a trip to Borneo.

However, their involvement went far beyond helping to organise an event. At the heart of ACT NOW is something SCIES and its partners have championed through the conference for years: giving young people a genuine opportunity to tell the adults responsible for supporting and safeguarding them what life looks like from their perspective.

As one student explained, there can be an assumption that younger generations don’t understand the problems around them or know what needs to change.

“I think it’s important for the new generation to actually say what they want,” she told me. “Events like this help society understand what we think needs to change.”

One of the Holmes Chapel presentations explored casual discrimination and stereotyping - the small comments, assumptions or behaviours that can easily go unnoticed.

The students gave examples such as saying somebody “runs fast for a girl”, assuming an Asian student must be good at maths, or someone simply being excluded from a group or conversation.

Their point was that discrimination doesn’t always present itself in an obvious way. Even comments intended positively can stereotype someone rather than recognising them as an individual.

Other presentations encouraged the students themselves to think differently. One student spoke about how another school’s presentation had changed her understanding of feminism.

“I learnt that feminism isn’t about women having more rights,” she explained. “It’s about having the same rights as men.”

She was also struck by discussions around double standards and how the same behaviour can sometimes be viewed differently depending on whether it comes from a man or a woman.

Social media inevitably played a major role in the conference too. Students explored its impact on teenage identity, body image, anxiety and depression, alongside discrimination, feminism and men’s mental health.

Online safety and the question “What do we really wish adults knew about helping us stay safe?” also gave young people the opportunity to explain what safeguarding looks like from their side.

That was one of the strongest messages to come from ACT NOW: safeguarding shouldn’t simply be adults making decisions for young people. Young people need to be part of the conversation.

Brine Leas School students demonstrated this through their work co-producing an easy-read, child-friendly Harm Outside the Home Strategy. By making important safeguarding information easier for children and teenagers to understand, they showed the value of involving young people in creating resources intended for them.

Speaking to the Holmes Chapel students afterwards, what struck me was not simply their confidence in sharing their own opinions, but their willingness to listen to others.

They talked enthusiastically about presentations from the other schools, ideas they hadn’t previously considered and subjects they now understood differently. In many ways, the young people weren’t simply presenting to the adults in the room - they were learning from each other.

Perhaps that is where the real value of an established conference like ACT NOW lies.

By bringing together young people, schools, the SCIES team, Cheshire East safeguarding partners, council representatives and the police, it creates a space where safeguarding can be discussed with young people, rather than simply about them.

Today’s teenagers are growing up in a world very different from the one many adults experienced. Social media and constant online communication have changed friendships, relationships and how young people view themselves, while bringing pressures previous generations didn’t face in quite the same way.

As adults, we cannot assume we always know what matters to them. Sometimes we simply need to ask - and then properly listen to the answer.

For Scarlett, Jesse, Sophie, Brianna, Matilda, Jemima and all the young people from the schools involved, this year’s ACT NOW Conference provided an opportunity to do exactly what its theme promised: use their voices.

They organised, presented, questioned, listened and challenged perceptions - building on the work of SCIES and its partners and demonstrating exactly why young people remain at the heart of this annual event.

Most importantly, they reminded the adults in the room that young people aren’t simply the future of safeguarding. They have experiences, opinions and ideas that can help shape it today.

Their voices matter - and through ACT NOW, SCIES, Cheshire East and the young people involved created an opportunity for those voices to be heard.

All information correct as of September 2026