It’s here! We are so excited to share Highfield School’s incredible film ‘We are all the Same but Different’ where young people 'have something say', are 'unapologetically themselves', and tell us what makes them happy; who they are; and what they stand for!

Read below some words from our facilitator Carla Addyman, who has been working with the group...

'I’ve been working with this group since September 2022, and this marks our final project together as the Speak Up programme comes to a close in July. Over the years, we’ve created so much, drawings, poems, music, and in many ways, it feels like everything we’ve done has been building toward the moment of making this film.

Since October 2024, we’ve spent every Tuesday afternoon working on it, sometimes in a classroom, sometimes in the dinner hall, and even outside when we got lucky. The group learned how to animate using iPads, with some experimenting with stop motion. They recorded their own lines, acted on camera, and even filmed parts themselves.

We wanted this film to have everyone’s personality at the heart of it. It’s theirs, completely, and it stands for everything they believe in. At its core, we’re asking: Do young people have to stand for something? Or, in 2025, is simply existing as a young person already a stand in itself? We thought so. So, we made a film about us, what makes us who we are. Through personal stories or ones we’ve imagined, everything you see is how we want to be seen.

I’m so incredibly proud to present their work to you, a film that is bold, thought-provoking, and deeply personal.'