Pupil Voice

The student leadership programme provides personal development to all students and aims to develop respectful, inspirational and active leaders within the academy who are involved in the day-to-day leadership, feeding into the mission of the students being a pillar of any community.

Through being a student leader, students are immersing themselves and promoting the Ark Putney Academy culture and ethos. These students represent the Academy’s pillars of: enthusiasm, effort, teamwork, independence, commitment and community through modelling exemplary behaviour and attitude towards learning, other students and extra-curricular opportunities.  The student leaders support the leadership and management to promote an inclusive environment that meets the needs of all students, irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

The student leadership is a ‘bridge’ between the staff and the students; to ensure that the students’ voices are heard, and that positive change occurs within the academy.

All students have the opportunity to and are encouraged to participate in student voice to ensure that they are part of the positive change that they want to see in the academy.  Students have two opportunities to participate in student voice:

• Through half termly surveys on their Chromebook via Microsoft Forms
• Through the student council system each half term in their tutor groups

Each half term a question or area of discussion is sent out to the whole school and then the feedback is fed all the way up to the Senior Leadership Team.

At Ark Putney Academy we operate a House system wherein on enrolment each of our students is assigned to a House. Houses are mixed up amongst year and tutor groups, this helps our students to form bonds outside of their immediate peers and creates an inclusive atmosphere.

Our Houses are named after key figures in British history and culture; their names are Brunel, McQueen, Rowling and Turing. These were voted for by our students. Our house crests, which can be seen above, are based on designs by our students.

We hold a house competitions based around all different skills and interests. Some of our past competitions have been; handball, bridge building, easter egg hunt, great british quiz, skipathon, spelling bee, and APA’s got talent.

There are 4 house captains across year 7-12. One from each year group for each house in the house system: Brunel, Rowling, McQueen and Turing.  Each student will hold a responsibility in working with the Heads of House within the academy to run house events and increase engagement across house-led activities. Alongside the house leaders are the 4 senior student leaders, 2 Head Students and 2 Deputy Head Students.  These students are responsible for overseeing the student council, reporting to the SLT and supporting staff with whole school events.