Year 9 student takeover!
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Ever thought a teacher's job was easy? Year 9 students were given the chance to ‘take over’ members of staff’s roles for the day.
Students masqueraded as teachers, teaching assistants, IT technicians and many other roles, with one student even taking on the role of principal. Year 9 were asked to apply for the role they wished to 'take over' with over 50 students putting together formal application letters.
Today's takeover day was unique opportunity for students to develop their leadership skills, build their confidence and communication skills whilst gaining a valuable insight into the roles of teachers and support staff throughout the college. They were asked to carry out real tasks such as putting up displays, break time duty, setting up IT equipment and minuting meetings whilst several students taught lessons including French, History and Music. Other students who were taking on the roles of some of the Senior Leadership Team were asked to complete a strengths and weaknesses analysis of the college and formally present their suggestions to three members of the real SLT team.
Deputy Principal, Tom Hague, who co-ordinated the takeover day, said: “The day has been a huge success giving students the opportunity to experience leadership and to make decisions. All of the students taking part learnt a lot about the different roles in college."
The day proved valuable for students and staff alike. Whilst students were amazed at the amount of work teachers had to do, SLT found the student feedback extremely useful; their well thought out suggestions for possible improvements in road safety outside school, ways to deal with bullying and the variety of subject options provided a valuable insight into students' perspective
A huge well done to all students involved who were fantastic at taking on the varied responsibilitiess. A special thank you to our student marketing manager who, armed whith her camera, captured many of the images below!
When asked if they had enjoyed takeover say there was a 100% positive response. We also asked students, ‘What did you learn from takeover day?’ Comments included:
- how much responsibility teachers have in making the lesson go smoothly,
- how much effort teachers put in,
- how hard the principal has to work,
- how hard everyone works to keep the school running day to day,
- that everyone has a specific job to do which is important for the school to work,
- that teachers jobs are much harder than what I thought!
Students also listed some of the skills that they felt they had improved through taking part in the experience including:
- working professionally and presenting ideas,
- working in a group and negotiating,
- communication and confidence,
- leadership and organisation skills.
Finally, we asked ‘Do you think we should organise another student takeover day?’ and 100% said Yes!
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