Thurston Community College near Bury St Edmunds appoints first student leadership team

Secondary school students have been appointed to leadership roles in an effort to ensure the young people truly have a voice.

Earlier this month around 150 students gathered for the first ever Thurston Community College (TCC) student leadership ceremony where they were presented with certificates and badges for their roles.

Students had to write an application and went through a series of interviews before being presented with the opportunity to lead the school’s student leadership team, which roles including senior prefects and wellbeing ambassadors.

The team aims to improve the experience for every single student at the college, in Thurston, near Bury St Edmunds, and is a big step towards making an environment where students truly have a voice, and hold the power to make a difference in their own learning environments.

Amelia, one of the newly-appointed student principals, said: “The first ever student leadership team awards ceremony was outstanding!

“It was incredible to see such a broad range of students coming together to make our school the best it can be, and the support from the audience was really great to see.”

Personal development lead at the college James Morris, who is leading the implementation of the student leadership team, said: “Tonight was a great opportunity to shine the spotlight on many of our students who are outstanding; to see the smiles on their faces as they collected their badges was incredible and to share this moment with their peers and families was really important.”

He added: “Student leadership is an integral part of what we are about here at Thurston. Student Leadership allows our students to put their voice forward in a professional environment and ensures that the students are at the centre of every decision we make.

“I am really looking forward to working with this amazing group of young people to really help shape TCC to be the best it can be and as importantly to help shape the individuals to be future leaders.”

The student leadership team is headed by the student principals and deputy principals who were all voted for by the student population after two weeks of campaigning, with over 80 per cent of students turning up to vote for their first ever student principals.

“Student leadership is incredibly important in getting student voice across and making your ideas count. We look forward to listening to your ideas in the next couple of weeks and are excited to get started,” said student principal Taylor.

•The student news team as part of the new student leadership team wrote the press release for this article.