Student Council Student Council
At Acton High, we believe that a successful Student Council is integral to nurturing responsible, collaborative and pro active young people. The Student Council aims to build a sense of community and strength within the school by complimenting the school’s mission to widen students’ horizons, build confidence and independence and encourage excellence.
Acton High’s School Council has been benefiting from a re-launch this year and the Autumn term got to a flying start!
STRUCTURE OF THE COUNCIL:
The structure of the Student Council has changed, and there is now a Junior Leadership Team, made up of eight Year 11 students who manage aspects such as Communication and Fundraising, Peer Mentoring and Student Voice. These students liaise with the Senior Leadership Team (deputies and the head teacher) and feedback innovations and proposals to the main Student Council.
Not only is there a Junior Leadership Team, but within the main Council, there are different ‘teams’ which are responsible for different areas. These teams include a Displays team who keep both the display board and electronic display up to date, a Promotions Team who are responsible for designing posters and informing the rest of the student body about events and innovations, as well as a Charities and Fundraising Team.
Weekly meetings mean that the Student Council keep up to date with campaigns and projects, through discussion and debate.
STUDENTS AS LEARNING PARTNERS:
As a school, we recognise that students become successful learners through the reflection, questioning and collaboration. During the Winter term the Student Council agreed to implement systems which would enable both students and teachers to reflect on what is happening in the classroom and to identify the strengths of different practices and techniques.
In the Spring term, the Student council will be piloting two schemes:
Students as Lesson Observers : a group of students and teachers work together to identify aspects of the learning to focus on. For instance, teachers may want feedback on things like: “How effective is group work?” “Are students benefiting from collaborating with one other person, or are bigger groups better for this particular task?”
Together student and teacher examine what is happening in the classroom (dependent on an agreed focus) and the student feeds back to the teacher at the end of the lesson, or over an observation period.
Faculty Boards : in this model a group of students are attached to a curriculum area and liaise with them on a variety of things such as piloting new materials or schemes of work, giving feedback on revision materials or evaluating assessment processes. This group will also be invited to curriculum meetings.
At the end of the Spring term, each scheme will be evaluated and the scheme which both teachers and students feel is more informative will be established in the Summer term.
THE FUTURE:
The Student Council has been flourishing over the past few months and we are looking forward to becoming even more involved in the processes of the school within the next few terms.
Students from Acton High are also looking forward to being involved in a consultation workshop with Ealing Council in regards to the regeneration of Acton’s town centre.