Student Voice and Student Leadership

At Granville Academy, we recognise the importance of developing the employability skills of our students. We provide a wide range of opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate their leadership skills in preparation for life beyond the Academy. We also value the thought and opinions of our students as key stakeholders and ensure that Student Voice plays a significant part in our Academy. 

Student Leadership at Granville Academy

Student Leadership is an important element to our academy community and at Granville Academy we ensure there are lots of opportunities in place for our student body to be involved in across the academic year. Student Leadership opportunities are available for all year groups allowing students the opportunities to share their important views and opinions of key aspects to academy life.

See below further information regarding the opportunities we currently have in place across the academy:-

Student Leadership Team

Our Student Leadership team comprises of 5 students in Year 11, who act as positive role models for our student body and lead on key student leadership opportunities across the school.

The Leadership team have 2 Head students and 3 Deputy Head students, who work together as a team to undertake the following:-

• Plan and organise initiatives across the school year.
• Lead and organise Student Voice across the academy.
• Act as positive role models for our student body and support students across all year groups.
• Support our Anti Bullying Mentors and initiatives across the year.
• Support with assemblies and speaking in front of students and external visitors.
• Provide feedback and opinions to our pastoral staff, senior leadership team and governors.
• Work together to improve the school environment for our student body.
• Lead on their legacy projects as a Student Leadership team and put these plans into place.

The Student Leadership Team are an important aspect to our academy and provide us with a team of students who work together on behalf of our student body. Our Student Leadership team go through a thorough application process which includes application form, interview and presentation in front of the staff body.

Our Student Leadership Team are identified in school with a gold tie and leadership team badge which they wear proudly around the school site. This allows students to easily identify the students in school. Students are advised to speak to these students if they would like some help and support in school.

Anti Bullying Mentors

Our Anti Bullying Mentors are a team of students who promote our Anti Bullying initiative across the school and provide students with peer on peer support within school. These students have been trained to support students if they are struggling in school.

These students are in place to support students across the academy and do not deal with bullying incidents reported in school.

We currently have trained Anti-Bullying Mentors in Year 8, 9 and 10. These students will remain in post throughout their school years. We will then be recruiting further Anti Bullying mentors in year 7 later this academic year. It is our academy vision over the next few years to have students in every year group who are actively promoting our Anti Bullying message across the school.

Anti Bullying mentors will do the following in school:-

• Provide peer or peer support within school.
• Promote, plan and organise key Anti Bullying initiatives across the school such as Anti Bullying week.
• Report any concerns to our Pastoral team or Senior staff within the academy.
• Work together as a team to promote Anti Bullying across the school.
• Oversee our Anti Bullying worry boxes within school and support with our Anti Bullying Showbie group and email.
• Provide students with students in school who are available to listen to in school if there are any worries or concerns.

Anti Bullying mentors are identified within school with a purple tie and Anti Bullying badge.

Anti Bullying mentors will receive regular training sessions / activities across each academic year to provide students with regular feedback and information regarding our Anti Bullying message and provide students with the appropriate training necessary to undertake the role.

Student Voice

Student Voice provides all students across the academy with an opportunity to raise key issues or opinions about important aspects of academy life.

Students volunteer within their tutor groups to be Student Voice representatives across the academy year and will be the voice of their tutor group within meetings.

Student Voice is ran and overseen by our Student Leadership Team where key topics are raised and discussed within the meetings to get feedback on students across all year groups.

• Year group student voice meetings take place every term with a member of the Student Leadership Team.
• One member of the Student Leadership team oversees each year group student voice.
• Student Leadership Team then meet with the Senior Leadership Team in the academy to feedback opinions from the student body and discuss potential plans moving forwards.

In 2022, Student Voice have provided further feedback on our Rewards and Recognitions policies and the positive rewards students can work towards within the academy. We will also be gaining opinions from students regarding potential eco-friendly / sustainability ideas during this academic year.

During 2023-24, Student Voice meetings took place, focusing on two key areas throughout the year.

During Term 1, Student Voice feedback was gathered on our school culture curriculum. Opinions and ideas were collected from students across all year groups, and this feedback was then presented by our Student Leadership Team to the Senior Leadership Team at the academy.

During Term 2, Student Voice feedback was gathered on our Student Leadership Team’s legacy project for the year. The aim was to understand students' opinions and ideas about the legacy project and to identify key improvements to help the project grow further throughout the year.

In 2024-25, we plan to hold additional Student Voice meetings each term, focusing on key topics relevant to the student body.

Student Prefect Team - Year 10 

This academic year, we have a new team of Year 10 prefects who will be supporting the Year 11 Student Leadership Team and assisting students across our student body. The prefect team will be working with senior staff, acting as key role models for students in Key Stages 3 and 4, and supporting the Student Leadership Team with their legacy project within the school.
The role also aims to provide Year 10 students with valuable experience in leadership prior to their opportunity to apply for the Head Student role at the end of Year 10.

Student Leadership is an important aspect to academy life at Granville Academy and we look at creating leadership opportunities for students across all year group. Creating leadership opportunities for students builds key social skills, responsibility and confidence in our students and provides them with opportunities to actively live and promote our academy values of ‘Work Hard, Be Kind and Choose Wisely’.