Student Voice Committees

This year, the Behaviour and Attitudes Committee have been focusing on rewards and recognising achievements in the school. Students have discussed our current system, including looking at improvements as well as reviewing the Anglo Learner Profile. They have talked about how these can be better represented in our rewards system.

The Behaviour and Attitudes committee is working towards finding a way to recognise and acknowledge each of the Learner Profile characteristics. This is something we hope to bring to fruition in 2025-2026. 

Most recently, the committee have spent time discussing what they like and dislike about our school uniform. The group are excellent at building ideas, discussing them and then looking at how we can implement them.

Last year we did a big push in the Inclusion group to work on safe spaces in school and access to provision. We secured funding for additional friendship benches in the canopy area and outside C block and helped with the planning and execution of charities week.

This academic year we are focusing on the positive mental health of our students and provision we can provide as a school and as a wider community. We are also merging at times with the behaviour and standards group to debate and discuss the Children’s Wellbeing Bill.

Our incredible Sustainability Student Committee has been working hard to explore ways to make our school more environmentally friendly. These dedicated students have come together with a shared passion for sustainability, brainstorming ideas and solutions that will have a lasting impact on our school community.

One of the key issues we have been discussing is litter and how we can encourage everyone to take responsibility for keeping our school clean. Through thoughtful discussions and teamwork, the students have come up with innovative strategies to tackle this challenge, ensuring that our environment remains a welcoming and waste-free space.

Looking ahead, we are excited to launch an awareness campaign on Earth Day to inspire action and raise funds for sustainability projects. This event will not only educate our peers about the importance of environmental responsibility but also provide the resources needed to put our ideas into motion.

 
A huge thank you to every student involved for their dedication and creativity. Special recognition goes to our fantastic Sixth Form team—Harriet, Aryaa, and Justas—who have been instrumental in leading discussions, organising initiatives, and motivating their peers to make a difference.

 
We are so proud of our students for their commitment to sustainability, and we look forward to seeing the positive changes they bring to our school. Let’s work together to create a greener, cleaner future!

Last year, students in this committee looked at teaching and learning at AES from the following angles: quality of homework, lesson planning to cover necessary content and revision strategies for different subjects.

This year, we are taking a more forensic approach and began by looking at curriculum maps for Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. We talked about what students learn and how this progresses from Year 7 up to Year 11 and even into the Sixth Form in a particular subject. This led us to consider how effectively we learn across the curriculum and how it might differ in different subject areas. In the Autumn term, we prepared some training resources which were used in the teacher training day on 6th January. This included videos in which students gave responses to the following 4 questions:

 
What are the ingredients of an outstanding lesson?​
What needs to happen in the classroom for you to feel like you are making excellent progress?​
Why do you feel more stretched academically in some subjects than others? What are your teachers doing specifically that make you feel more positive and motivated in that subject than others?​
If you could tell the teachers at AES one important thing that you think would make teaching and learning at our school even better, what would it be?

Teachers watched the videos and worked in department groups to consider the students' responses through their own lens.

 
The student voice committee also compiled a mind map on the board in our autumn term committee meeting to outline student views about what a good lesson should look like and what the characteristics of a good teacher are. This was then photographed and used as part of another training task for teachers at the training day. The views of teachers in response to those of the students were collated and brought back to our most recent committee meeting for further discussion. We are now planning to create a document to highlight the characteristics of an ideal AES student. Once agreed, we hope to create a poster and display this in form rooms and classrooms.

 
It's been really great to see a tangible interaction between the views of the students in the Quality of Education committee and the teaching staff at AES this year.

The Personal Development and Safeguarding committee have been looking at a range of issues that affect how young people feel in our school. The first agenda item this academic year was Period Poverty, and we looked at how we could ensure that all students who need access to menstrual products can access them without shame or restriction. We then looked at how we can promote positive and healthy relationships and how to recognise the signs when a relationship is not that healthy. This committee has also been looking at evidence to submit for our application for the Silver Equalities Award, an award we are hoping to achieve by the end of this year. For this we examined how young people learn to keep themselves safe online and we evaluated our PSHE curriculum.

In the Equality and Diversity Student Voice we work to ensure all pupils in the school feel a sense of belonging. Following the development of the inclusive language guide we have been working to ensure that discriminatory and offensive language is at an all time low. We have been discussing ways in which we can educate our pupils on the views and experiences of various marginalised groups within society. There has also been some staff training discussing the experiences of some of our pupils following these student voice meetings.