School of Hard Knocks Charity

School Of Hard Knocks' (SOHK) mission is to empower individuals to fully realise their potential. Our vision is a society in which everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. SOHK exists to support individuals who are facing inequality. We enable meaningful change in participants’ lives through: High Impact Sport School of Hard Knocks' (SOHK’s) school's programmes use high-impact sports to physicalise the challenges our participants face. SOHK enables participants to improve confidence, communication skills, commitment, self-control and the ability to work well within a team. Mentoring SOHK’s use of high-impact sports works in tandem with the application of group and one-to-one mentoring. Group sessions allow participants to gain valuable insights from both SOHK facilitators and their peers and give individuals the opportunity to understand different lived experiences. Each participant is also given one-to-one mentoring with an SOHK specialist to explore personal goals and challenges. The Power of the Team SOHK engenders an atmosphere of genuine acceptance which allows long-lasting social bonds to be formed between participants. Our programmes show participants how the individual strengthens the collective and how the collective strengthens the individual; participants are encouraged to maintain their relationships with coursemates once their time at SOHK ends. School of Hard Knocks works with 1,700 secondary school students aged 11 - 16 across the UK. The lived experiences of beneficiaries are varied, some may be homeless or living in extreme poverty, and others may be victims of exploitation or abuse - there is no defining characteristic of an SOHK participant, but all of them are living in complex and challenging circumstances. We aim to enable our participants to find purpose and meaning in their lives and to give them the tools they need to cope with their experiences.