Student Voice

Student voice is a part of the student body who seek opinions of others in school and work with the senior leadership team to make decisions which will benefit students.

Student Voice Leadership team 2024-2025 From left to right: Sophie Taijbee, Rohana Stentiford, Amelia Knight, Jack Cahill, Harry Chilcott, Erica Williams, Lilli-Marie Barnes, Molly Lunn

One of the main things that we have achieved over the last two years is the introduction of Class Charts. We did some research about how well students were using their paper diaries, and realised they were no longer fit for purpose. We provided this feedback to the senior leadership team, who then organised for a different method to be used. This was put in place from September 2023. Class Charts is innovative at informing students and parents about a plethora of information. For example, there is the announcements system, information about homework, merits, behaviour points and attendance. Students two-week timetable is also shown on class charts.

Following student voice meetings, there have been changes to the uniform for the lower school, including the change to allow students to wear shorts, as well as a summer uniform for extreme heat.

In the past two years we have been working hard to make the school as environmentally friendly as possible. We have successfully banned plastic in the canteen. This consists of replacing the plastic water bottles (which over 1000 used to be sold per day) with cans or boxes of water. This is good for the school as we can now say that we recycle all the items that students can purchase from the canteen. We have also campaigned and fundraised successfully for new water fountains across the school site! We are also in the planning stages of designing and building bird boxes for the school site with the help of the Resistant Materials department.

We also implemented a new queuing system in the canteen to make people feel safe and comfortable when eating inside as the old queue used to wrap around all the central tables. This used to make people feel intimidated to eat inside which meant corridors with get overcrowded with the surplus of students who would normally be outside during wet break. We also added skip the queue vouchers to a new rewards system we helped to implement. Further rewards include at 25 merits getting a postcard home, and at 100 merits you are entered into a year group prize draw to win £100 gift card.

Student voice regularly work with outside organisations, such as Voice X and the Poundbury Residents Association.

A recent survey has told us that we have 3 key areas to focus on this year, including the canteen, the site and making the school more ecofriendly.

The Leadership team

Jack Cahill

I joined student voice in 2022 and have been in it for the whole of year nine, which at the end of that year I joined the student voice leadership team as the secretary and now work in the admin team where we make all the PowerPoints, surveys or any other documents needed for student voice. Since joining I have helped to implement and help come up with some of the ideas listed above. In the future I would like to ensure that students have an easy way to communicate to student voice so that any issues they have can be addressed and hopefully, fixed. For example, last year we helped to implement the new summer uniform scheme.

Erica Williams

I joined Student Voice right at the start of year 9 and I have been involved ever since. During my time, I have been part of lots of different initiatives, especially helping to push for more water fountains on site. I am now part of the leadership team, taking on the role as co-lead of the Site committee. Looking into the next year, I will be focusing on ways to better the seating areas around school, particularly for wet weather. This will build on the opening of the theatre that we requested to increase the places to eat at lunchtime.

Rohana Stentiford

Hey, I’m Rohanna Stentiford and I’m a year eleven student at the Thomas Hardye School. Currently, I am the Canteen Committee co-leader, and I am keen to help develop the area into a welcoming, safe space where everybody feels like there is a food or drink option suitable for them. For example, an aspect that has recently interested me in the canteen, is the use of plastic packaging and how we can strive for a more eco- friendly alternative whilst also providing the high-quality and nutritious food that the students deserve. I believe that to achieve this, it is important to work with the whole school community, so that everyone has a platform for their opinions and ideas on how to create a better environment.

Molly Lunn

I joined student voice in 2023 and have been in year 10. At the end of that year, I joined the leadership team and now work in the admin team where we make all the power points, surveys or any other documents needed for student voice. Since joining I have helped implement and help come up with some of the ideas listed above. In the future I want to ensure that students have an easy and clear way to convey ideas to the team about issues so we can put a solution forward with the students' view in mind. For example, we put upgraded water fountains all over the school to make it easier for the students to have more access to water during the school day.

Harry Chilcott

In 2022, when I was in year 9, I joined Student Voice, and I have been a member of it ever since. I have been involved in implementing some of the various things above. I am now part of the leadership team as one of the co-leads of the Site Committee. I would like to make the school, especially in terms of the school site, more accessible and enjoyable for all the school community. I hope to work with the student body and the other parts of Student Voice to improve and implement what the students want.

Sophie Taibjee

I joined student voice earlier this year (2024) at the beginning of the summer term. I started THS partway through year 9 and this is when I joined the student voice leadership team. Being quite new to the student voice, I have helped to review the most recent survey, and I co-lead the environment committee. In the future I hope to help THS become more sustainable and environmentally friendly. As we are such a large school it is very important, we manage our waste, carbon footprint, and energy use.

Lilli-Marie Barnes

I joined back in 2023 and became part of the leadership team in 2024, and I am now the eco co lead and the main thing i want to change is the amount of waste produced by are school and improve the recycling procedures at our school.

Amelia Knight

My name is Amelia, I am a year 10. I joined student voice due to my passion for helping the community and for my ideas for helping our school community improve. I am the co leader of the canteen committee were working with the environment committee we would like to continue to reduce the amount of plastic and waists produced by the canteen. During my time on student voice, I hope to help improve pupils school life and continue to help with our community.