Fifteen students from Highdown School in Reading braved the unusually cold elements in early May and did their own Big Sleep Out in the school grounds.
Whilst one night of sleeping outside is nothing like the real experience of being a rough sleeper, it gave the young adults a small insight.
The students and six members of staff met early evening to make their own sleeping spaces using materials they had collected, including bubble wrap and cardboard.
Teacher Matthew Loveday said: “After they had made their sleeping areas, we had a game of rounders and some hot drinks.
“We sat around a firepit and chatted about lots of topics, which included what rough sleepers have to go through and how frightening it must be.
“There were some meaningful conversations around the dangers of sleeping rough as the students realised we were in the safe space of the school with access to toilets; they questioned what would it be like for someone sleeping in a doorway in a busy town?
“They talked about the dangers associated with this, people stealing your stuff, the fear of being assaulted and rough sleepers suffering from the elements; cold weather or rain.
“We decided to stay up as late as possible and bedded down around midnight, but we were all awake, bleary-eyed at around 5am, thanks to the dawn chorus!”
He added that no-one had a great night of sleep and it was a shock to some students who had never camped before or slept in a sleeping bag.
However, the whole event was a huge success in terms of personal development for the students and £1,698 was raised (inclusive of gift aid).
There are plans to have another Big Sleep Out at the school next year.
Here are some thoughts from two of the students who took part.
“The cold in the middle of the night, I think this made the reasons behind raising this money so clear to me. The fact that I was in a position 100 times better on Saturday than an actual homeless person and it was that cold has made me more aware about the position homeless are actually in. I now want to do more to help them.”
“Although I was in a safe environment, you still feel vulnerable sleeping outside. The cold made it hard to sleep, and even just getting up and packing away on little sleep and aching was hard. The hardest thing was just reflecting on the fact that many in my local area have to rough sleep every night for long periods of time – it made me appreciate and understand my privilege even more.”
Anyone can hold their own Big Sleep Out and we’ve put together a guide to show you how.