Student Voice at St Joseph's

What is Student Voice?

Student Voice is first and foremost about empowering students to express their opinions, identifying both creative and pragmatic solutions about their experience at school, both inside and outside the classroom. At St Joseph's we feel Student Voice is centred around providing students with an active opportunity to express their opinions and make decisions regarding their experience of school life. Any member of our student community can employ their 'Student Voice' in a forum dedicated to finding solutions and realising ideas for the benefit of our students at St Joseph's Catholic College.

Background to Student Voice

Following student feedback, Student Voice was re-launched in the Spring of 2008. Based on issues raised by students, St Joseph's launched its new College based Parliament. The new student Parliament would:

• be voted for by year group rather than tutor group
• make more use of the technology available
• have a higher profile in College life
• be able to present ideas to the Leadership Group
• meet during the College day
• make a real contribution to real outcomes in the College

Members of College Parliament 2009

During the summer of 2009, we held our second College Parliament elections here at St Joseph's. Elections were organised during tutorial time and our canteen was turned into a polling station with display boards dividing the breakfast bar into booths. Tutor groups were emailed with voting instructions and students received voting cards. Students voted and returned to tutorial. The results were checked by students and communicated via email to tutors. These are the names of those College MPs who were elected to represent students for 2009-2010:

Student Action Groups

Following on from the successful re-launch of our College Parliament, there has also been a number of student action groups established that have demonstrated students taking the lead in a range of different areas. These have included the following committees:

• the Green Team
• the Media Team
• the AV (Audio Visual) Team
• the College Garden Team
• Year 10 Student Buddies
• Anti Bullying

So! How Can YOU Get Involved?

Everyone has a role to play. Bringing 'Student Voice' to life and making a real difference is a collective responsibility. On a simple basis, this could be about ensuring you express your opinions and ideas on College life; making your voice heard to your MP, your Tutor, your teacher; whoever it may be. Without your ideas, opinions and feelings we can't change anything. Furthermore, we want students to develop into proactive citizens, ambassadors of action; not just words. If you think you would like to get involved on one of our existing action groups or even would like to set up a new one, then let either your Tutor know or contact Mr Slater or Mrs Ash (Y13) direct. Finally, you might like to consider becoming one of our future College Parliament MPs and contributing even further towards Student Voice.

Student Voice 2009-2010

Our ongoing aim is to now build on our past achievements since Student Voice was re-launched in the Spring of 2008. Through Student Voice we aim to contribute to the outstanding quality of Teaching and Learning, Business and Enterprise and Citizenship at St Joseph's. We want to allow students even further opportunities to be ambassadors of change, empowering students to take on leadership roles in actively participating in a range of ways and areas of College life. Over the next year we are keen to promote the significance of Student Voice to everyone. This is not a project. This is not something which impacts solely on our College MPs. Student Voice involves each and every one of us.