Student Voice

Assistant Headteacher Student Voice : Mrs M Spowage Student voice can best be described as the means by which students articulate their needs and become involved with the business of schooling. Although student voice has been evident in the life of St Hugh’s in the form of the student council over the last decade it has largely been deemed as a tokenistic and ineffective where some students believe their voices are not heard.

My role as Assistant Head is to develop a meaningful SV in both the school and the community. We also have a responsibility to provide opportunities for students to get involved and learn more about not just local but global communities.

Student Council:
Since April 2007 we have increased the numbers of students who are representatives of the student council from 15 to 40 with two strong representatives from each tutor group. The student Council have a fortnightly schedule of meetings where at least one member from each group attends and discuss any issues with myself and the learning mentors.

Student Interviewers:
We now have a group of 30 students with a year 10 student as chairperson of that group who are responsible for interviewing new staff. The interview panel which usually consists of up to 8 students will be rotated and selected by the chairperson.

Student Magazine:
This group consists of 20 students and 5 members of staff who will act as mentors on the initial stages. The aim is to produce magazine each term by the students for the students. Links have been made with the local journal to have taster sessions seeing how a newspaper is produced from start to finish. Also it is planned that year 10 students working on the magazine will have the opportunity to carry out work experience at the journal for one to two weeks.

Prefects:
We currently have 12 students from year 11 who have been nominated prefects by the staff. The next group of prefects will be nominated using a new electronic voting system called mi-vote. This will ensure a fair vote by all the students in the school.

There are future plans to involve students in lesson observations, development plans, curriculum planning, staff /student inset days and creating global links with students from other countries.