The Westgate School 

Pupil Leadership Groups

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The Westgate offers every pupil the opportunity to participate in a leadership role during their time at The Westgate, being part of our commitment to 'Rights, Respect and Responsibility' across our school. This might be through joining one of the following groups:

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Eco Group

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Our aim is to provide a place for pupils to put forward their ideas about the school environment and work together to discuss and implement improvements. At present the Global group are working on a presentation for all tutor groups to explain what we do. Now we have lots of new members we are trying to encourage recycling in all classrooms. Some of the group are going to be decorating the recycling bags to make them more obvious to everyone and encouraging all of us to put used and broken pens into the boxes provided.

 

We are planning to put a plant in each classroom to make our environment more attractive as well as making plans for herb gardens and more flowering plants around the school. We continue to maintain the new planting in the pond area and have proposed a bug house to provide a home for invertebrates and other creatures.

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Curriculum Group

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Our aim is to provide a place for pupils to put forward their ideas about the Curriculum and work together to discuss and implement changes for our Whole School Curriculum. We have focused on how to best suit various learning styles, how to best enhance our learning experiences in the classroom and how to best support others with their studies.

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The Curriculum Group has been working on creating, promoting and monitoring their new subject ambassador forums. They have been trialling ways to get people to use the system and need to spend time properly advertising the forums for the use of all students. They will continue to work on this and a weekly monitoring of the forums as well. 

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GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) Group

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We work with both pupils, teachers and the local community to support equality and diversity. We discuss both practical aspects and the changing world outside of school in order to promote a tolerant and inclusive learning environment.

 

House Leaders

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The House Leaders represent and lead the four different Houses at our school. We ensure that there is a wide range of activities and competitions so that everyone has a chance to represent their own House and help to win the coveted House Cup. We work with Miss Humm to support the Westgate Community Challenge to make sure that our House members are able to gain their Bronze, Silver or even Gold badges. we celebrate this success by leading assemblies and promoting our ethos.

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The Well-being Group

 

Aims

In Wellbeing Group, our aim is to try and make the pupils’ experience at The Westgate as enjoyable as possible. We also want to make sure that the pupils have a pleasant working environment in the school. We also try to inform the pupils about what is happening in our school and that they are able to voice their opinions about school procedures.

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Projects - Embedding RRR into school life

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One of the ways that we are making sure that the students are being involved in the school is by discussing how the pupils are embedding RRR into the school through developing their skills and abilities through the Westgate Maker's scheme. Pupils are listing improvements that they are interested in seeing to increase pupil wellbeing such as improving behaviour on the school buses, designing Christmas decorations to be displayed across the school, and for each pupil to feel that their opinion matters.

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Aims for Next Year…

Our aim for the next year is to be able to start thinking about ways to enhance the well being of years 7, 8 and 9 pupils by creating specific tasks, for example the group are currently discussing a joint task with the charity group which involves the participation of staff and pupils to raise money for charity and to continue to  raise the Westgate moral.

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Prom Committee leader and PSA link

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As the senior council representative for Prom Committee, I make sure that the year 11 prom is fun and accessible for everyone. This includes being very organised in orchestrating fundraising events for the prom and being involved in all the other aspects such as the yearbook. Then, communicating this to the other senior council members and teachers. We also support the PSA (Parent and Staff Association). We ensure that the school and parents work together in order to raise money for school projects. We suggest projects through speaking with other groups and organise pupil involvement. 

 

The Charity Group
 

The charity group has always been very busy this term, year 8 baked cakes and sold them to raise funds for Macmillan cancer research. We collected over 260 shoe boxes for the Christmas child appeal. Non uniform day in November raised a massive £1,0051. pounds for Children in Need. We had a live band performance from two of our very successful and popular school bands. Friday 5th December the school wore Christmas jumpers to raise funds for our school PSA, they had contributed bottles, chocolates, money and jam jars filled with sweets to be sold at the fair.  The poppy appeal and sales of poppies was £355.00.  Mr Wylie and colleagues baked cakes and started to persuade a number of members of staff into running a half marathon or 10K in the ABP Southampton race in April. We will be raising funds for teenage Cancer Charity Trust. We will also have our own Fun run in school when the weather gets a bit better.

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Our next project is to support an orphanage in Kenya and to provide them with school uniform so that they can attend school. An ex pupil of the school, Beth, has already been into school and explained how she got involved in the orphanage and is now a main trustee. In January the charity group will visit each tutor group and explain how they can help.

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As always we are grateful to each and every member of our school who contributes in whatever way in donating money, offering support and ideas for fund raising and to the charity group who give up their time each week and for each event.

 

If you need support for a charity close to your heart please speak to any member of the charity group or come along to a meeting and tell us what you need.