Student Conference

The first Student Conference of the year was held on Thursday 25 January and over 80 pupils including Sixth Form and the Rise Council attended. The conference was made up of all the House Councils and representatives from our other student representative groups and councils including the Anti Bullying Council (ABC), School of Supported learning Council (SOSL) , ECO Council and Pupils as Learning Partners (PLPs).

The Conference had a packed and varied agenda with input from a number of students and staff.

Kimmy Herbert, our Bracknell Forest Youth Council member, gave a presentation on the work of the Youth Council, how to get involved and information on the nationwide Make Your Mark vote that is currently live in Bracknell Forest. Make Your Mark is the largest consultation of 11-18 year olds in Europe, where young people have a chance to vote on what matters to them. All pupils and students this week are being given the chance to vote on which of 10 issues they would like Youth Parliament to work on for the next two years. The issues they can choose from are:

Education & Learning
International Relations
Health & Wellbeing
Rights, Equalities & Democracy
Jobs, the Economy & Benefits
Crime & Safety
Culture, Media & Sport
Climate Change and the Environment
Transport
Youth Work & People’s Services

We will find out following the national vote, which 3 issues have been chosen for Youth Parliament to focus on.

A big thank you to Kimmy Herbert and Jahnavi Khandelwal for their help with leading on Make Your Mark in the College.

The ABC Council presented to the Conference on the training the Anti Bullying Ambassadors had received from the Diana Award Anti-bullying Council. SOSL Council then went on to present and inform the Conference on the work they had been doing including recruiting new SOSL Ambassadors and to remind us that they had presented whole college assemblies on disability awareness. SOSL & ABC councils with the help of Mrs Morris then went on to present to the Conference on the work they are doing currently in working towards achieving the Respect Badge issued by the Diana Award. This requires building evidence of all the inclusive activities completed this year including assemblies, staff training and awareness weeks.

We also did a session on how to run effective House and College Councils and the work the PTFA have done for the student body last year and so far this year. We are pleased to announce that the PTFA have supported us by contributing to the costs of renovation the Eco Garden so that we can begin to use it in the summer term and have also bought us some new furniture to go in the garden for students to sit at break and lunch.

We also fed back the Student Survey results from the December survey and asked for their input on how to improve aspects of college life. Our Mental Health Ambassadors fed back to the Conference on what they had been involved in doing lately and Mr Huskinson presented a section on Careers and asked for feedback on the guidance currently given and how this could be improved.

When we asked all tutor groups what items they would like discussed at the conference on issue that was requested a number of times was ‘toilet’. A number of comments had come up in the student and parent survey regarding toilets and so we invited Mr Mandville, our Site Manager who informant students present about the cleaning regime that is done on a daily basis and the cost of repairing damage to the toilets. Students were quite shocked at the cost of replacing broken locks for example and also agreed that the cleaning regime of 3 times per day should be sufficient to keep the areas clean for all to use. Students also came up with some positive solutions to how to ensure students use the toilets respectfully.

Thank you to all the students who participated in the conference and special thanks to Sixth Form students who attended and helped facilitate the session. These included Jakub Roj, Stefan White, Jamie Dark, Aleks Blanusa, Lilly Douglas, Bryan Owusu Sarfo, Talamika Kinghori and Sam Johnson.

We look forward to holding another Student Conference in the near future.

Mrs Hart