Student Leadership and Student Voice

Student Leadership

At Sprowston Community Academy, we believe passionately that our students should be given as many opportunities as possible to lead aspects of school life. We know that this gives our students huge benefits which may include:

  • Improved confidence and communication skills
  • The ability to work together with students in different year groups
  • The ability to develop skills such as planning and organisation
  • The opportunity to reflect on where things have worked and where they haven’t
  • Exposure to some of the external factors and barriers that can sometimes get in they way of what we want to achieve
  • Developing skills and qualities such as initiative, resilience and perseverance

We also get a huge amount from developing our students as leaders. They can be powerful and articulate ambassadors for the school, as well as key drivers of change and development. As we strive to be the “Best Version of Sprowston” we know that our student voice and student agency has to be a key factor in evaluating provision, identifying where there are opportunities for further improvement and contributing to making this change happen!

Where will we see Student Leaders at Sprowston?

Student Leaders are active in both subjects and at a whole school level.

At a whole school level, students across all year groups from Y7-Y13 are working together to lead on all aspects of school life. These include:

  • Acting as Ambassadors for the school. This will include leading tours for parents and supporting us at key parent events and when we have external visitors to the school such as potential interview candidates
  • Supporting Transition. Our Student Leaders are fully involved in the transition of Year 6 students joining us. This includes joining staff to visit the Junior schools in the spring and summer terms and then supporting the whole process of transition from the summer term transition day through to the first year of students being in school. We are looking to extend this model so that older students can more formally support younger students at other key transition points such as the move to KS4/5
  • Leading work on Equalities. Our students are passionate about equality and diversity and we have students working on all aspects of this including promoting awareness of LGBTQ, SEND and racial and religious equalities. We have a vibrant and proactive student group working on Sexual Harassment and Violence and they regularly feed into planning at a senior leadership level
  • Peer Support. Our students want to support each other and they are keen to develop all aspects of this at a pastoral and an academic level. Students have been trained as Peer Mentors and we are working on developing this into a more coherent system supporting issues such as friendship, bullying and mental health. Our students also want to support each other academically and a group of students are currently working on plans to develop homework clubs for younger students
  • Charity, Active Citizenship and Community Links. Our students think beyond Sprowston and consider the local, national and international world in which we live. They are keen to make a difference to the lives of others. Our current student leader group has a particular passion for working with local charities and this is what they are trying to embed.

Student Voice

At Sprowston, we value and respect the views of our students. We see them as our main “consumers”- they are in the best place to tell us what is right about our product and what needs to be developed!

Student Voice will be seen in many places at Sprowston. This includes:

  • Student panels from all year groups are routinely involved in Curriculum and Pastoral Quality Reviews
  • Student panels are routinely used in all recruitment - we value the views and insights of our students when it comes to adding new staff to “Team Sprowston”
  • All year groups have an established Year Council which feeds through to the School Council. Each half term, 3 themes are discussed by all year groups and information fed back to the Head teacher at the School Council meeting at the end of each half term.
  • We have a culture that is open, reflective and welcomes student views. When we say we want to be the best version of ourselves, we know that that can mean taking on board the perceptions of all of our stakeholders. Students can raise with staff any concerns or ideas that they have and these are considered carefully by senior leaders when making decisions.. Our students think beyond Sprowston and consider the local, national and international world in which we live. They are keen to make a difference to the lives of others. Our current student leader group has a particular passion for working with local charities and this is what they are trying to embed.