Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Dr Cheron Byfield, author, public speaker and CEO of Excel Three; a charity that seeks to raise the academic aspirations and achievements of less advantaged children.

Dr Cheron Byfield

Jonathan: Tell us a little bit about Excel Three. How did it get started and why did you start it?

Dr Byfield: We started Excel Three ten years ago, actually we'll be celebrating our tenth anniversary this year. It started with a group of professionals from my local church based in Birmingham. And what we wanted to do, was actually run a summer programme specifically for black boys; just to kind of get them focused on their education. So we actually set about to establish a six-week summer programme. And basically from that - at the end of that programme, the boys turned round to us and said we don't want this project to finish. And so that was the beginning of the Black Boys Can programme, which is part of Excel Three. And from that, over the years, we have also formed another project under Excel Three called the Wise programme, and that programme caters for other disadvantaged children; namely working class children, children in care and other ethnic minority children. Again with the same objective of seeking to raise their academic aspirations and achievement.

Jonathan: By calling yourselves the National Black Boys Can Association are you saying that those most in need are black young boys?

Dr Byfield: Black boys are one of the lowest achieving groups of children in this country. When they start the educational system, they're one of the highest; by the time they leave school and get to sixteen they're one of the lowest achieving groups of children. In fact over 70% of them leave school without achieving the national standards of five GCSEs grade A* to C. So it is a big concern.

Jonathan: What are the causes for that do you think?

Dr Byfield: It's very multi-faceted. There's no one particular reason. It's a whole combination of very complex factors ranging from the fact that - a number of black families are still part of a low socio economic background within this country. And as we know social class does impact on the educational performance of children, irrespective of which ethnic group they belong to. It also accounts for things like the youth culture particularly in relation to the laddish culture which impacts very negatively on the schooling of boys. There's also racism which is very prevalent in our schools even today despite all the work that's been done, it's still very much a common factor within many of our schools and that adversity impacts on the education performance of our boys. So it's a whole plethora of factors which has resulted in this phenomena.

Jonathan: In terms of your success working with these young men, what has been the educational success of the NBBCA?

Dr Byfield: Right. We're talking about over 60% of the boys who are on our programme in a significant period of time achieve national standards which are well - apart from the fact that it's above the national standard for all ethnic groups of children, it's well above the national average of what black boys are actually achieving in this country.

Jonathan: That's fantastic. I understand that you've seen the educational achievement of young children improve when the Christian community works alongside them. That's an interesting statement. How have you seen that?

Dr Byfield: Very much so. When we made the decision that we were going to actually set up the organisation, it was a good year or two after that that we actually got exposure in the Times Educational Supplement. They actually came down to our project; they saw what was happening and they thought it was a fantastic programme. And we ended up being the lead article in the Times Educational Supplement. And that generated huge national interest. From that we decided that we needed to respond to this huge national interest. And what we decided was that we didn't want to grow a large organisation. What we wanted to do was to empower local communities to do what we were doing. And so we set about setting up a community franchise structure. And therefore we have responded to community organisations and churches; and in fact quite a number of churches have come forward, to say we would like to respond to the needs of the children in our locality. And so we've actually supported them through that programme. As a result, and I think because we are a Christian based organisation, it has attracted other Christians who can see the benefit of reaching out to their community and being relevant in the society today. So a lot of the organisations are involved in the Black Boys Can network, are also part of church communities. And so they give their time voluntarily. Another interesting point as well; you see - even though the black community in this country don't do as well as the indigenous population, if you look in a lot of the black churches, the black Christians do academically. And so within the churches there is a lot of poverty role models. And so by them reaching out and supporting these disadvantaged children, we are seeing results.

Jonathan: How important is the mentoring side in terms of helping young boys?

Dr Byfield: Mentoring is very important. I think it's important that the boys have positive role models around them. And so they're not just teaching them certain things, they're actually living out by example. And so to have positive role models and people who are actually believing in them, it does make a difference to the boy's lives.

Jonathan: It's great to hear the success you're having. If someone wants to find out more about the work that you are doing, do you have a website they should go too?

Dr Byfield: Yes, they can log on to www.blackboyscan.co.uk