Students from across the Trust travelled by minibus to Saltash School, where the day began with a series of icebreaker activities designed to help everyone get to know one another. Congratulations to Charlie from Saltash, who completed the challenging ‘find someone who’ activity in the fastest time! 

These initial activities helped students quickly learn each other’s names, promoted a sense of belonging, and set a positive tone for the day. 

Following the icebreakers, Saltash student leaders led a tour of the school. SMART Trust is proud of enabling each school to foster its own identity and so this gave the Secondary School student leaders the chance to compare the differences and similarities between the schools whilst giving the Primary School student leaders a head start on understanding ‘big school!’ 

The heart of the day was a Student Council discussion, where students from across the trust came together to share their thoughts on key school issues. 85% of students from across the Trust had just completed the annual SMART student survey and so key findings were shared with the student leaders.  Student leadership was reported by their peers as being one of the best features and one of the fastest improving by the survey.  This was included in the list of ‘how could we achieve further improvement’ topics.  Together the student leaders completed a SWOT analysis on the following topics: 

• Behaviour outside of lessons 

• Student leadership 

• Student voice 

• Good attendance 

• Safety in toilets and corridors 

• Behaviour in lessons 

This discussion generated valuable insights and thoughtful suggestions, which will be shared with Governors, the Trust Board and Head Teachers at each school to inform ongoing improvement and student-focused initiatives. The quality of ideas and contributions from all participants was impressive and showed the value of student voice in shaping school life.