Making National Headlines

When the league tables were published on 13 January, there was a lovely article written about us in The Independent entitled "Student voice helps put school in with a shout".

The article begins:

Pupil power – or to give it its proper name "student voice" – it seems can produce some interesting results. When youngsters at the Strood Academy in the Medway Towns, Kent, were given a chance to have a say in how their school was run, they opted to have longer lessons.

The 1,370-pupil academy opened its doors for the first time in September 2009. At that time pupils had five one-hour lessons every day.

It wasn't long enough for the range of activities the children wanted in their lessons," says Richard Hart, the school's headteacher. "For instance, they couldn't finish their practical activities in science. As a consequence of listening to what they had to say in our first year, we switched to four lessons of a longer duration and now they can finish things like that."

Involving the pupils in their education is one of the key strategies adopted by the academy as it strives to improve performance.

"They are unbelievably honest in what they say and you get accurate feedback from them," says Hart.

To read the complete article please click here.