Student voice
Students are experts on many aspects of school life. It is essential that our students’ voices are captured, listened to, and considered as an integral part of the framework of how we work.
All Anthem schools have student councils, and many have student leadership groups. These groups give students agency in different aspects of school life, activities, and decision-making.
Timi Champions
To enable student voices to have genuine impact across all our schools, we have introduced student representatives onto every Anthem Community Council (ACC) as part of our new 'bold and brave' approach to governance.
"These changes won't just be for us now, they will be for future generations when they come to a school that's linked with the Trust."
These student representatives are known as Timi Champions after the Year 10 student from St Mark’s Academy in Mitcham whose idea it was for student voice to play a greater role across Anthem.
Starting in Spring 2024, the two Timi Champions, chosen by their fellow students to represent them on their school’s ACC, will attend termly meetings accompanied by a nominated teacher who will help guide them. Their responsibilities will be to:
-
Actively and impartially listen and give voice to students at their school.
-
Feed into a termly report document for the ACC.
-
Help the ACC communicate with students and improve links.
-
Help Trustees and the National Team understand the local context of the school.
-
Provide feedback on how to make the school and Anthem more responsive to student needs.
-
Encourage the ACC to be more visible to the students.
As part of this fantastic learning experience, the students will receive bespoke training and support to carry out their role, as well as peer-to-peer support via the Timi Champion Forums.
Timi has given the following advice to his fellow associates: “Don't hold back your opinions. You've become a Timi Champion so that your opinions can be heard and so that you can make changes for the greater good of your school. These changes won't just be for us now they will be for future generations when they come to a school that's linked with the Trust.”
