Jasmine Marshall achieved her Silver award and Christina Lawrence achieved her Gold, the highest standard of student leadership for this accreditation. The moderator of the portfolios was extremely impressed with the standard of both entries and had high praise for both Jasmine and Christina, citing a great range of evidence and clear role modelling through Wayne O’Leary Award for Jasmine and Deputy Head Girl and DofE work for Christina.

Both portfolios provide excellent examples for the future cohorts due to complete at the beginning of the 2019/20 academic year. Congratulations to both Jasmine and Christina on their hard work.

Student Leadership Accreditation

All pupils at Worthing High have the opportunity to gain a Student Leadership Accreditation (SLA), via the schools, students and teachers network (SSAT). The SLA is an innovative way of recognising students’ leadership skills and the impact that they have in the classroom, across the school, and in the wider community.  The SLA was developed by students, for students, in partnership with teachers, higher education and further education institutions, and employers. Together they identified ten key strands that young people need to be successful leaders, and grouped into three core themes: developing myself, contributing to my community, and working with others.

How is the accreditation attained?

The accreditation would be completed during tutor time.

Strands and themes are grouped into a self-assessment framework and students then gather evidence in a portfolio to support this, writing a statement explaining how their evidence proves they’ve met the criteria.  Students assess themselves against this framework and then actively seek opportunities to advance themselves and gather evidence to showcase their new skills in a portfolio.

When students have completed their portfolio, it is moderated by another student – making the award itself truly student-led and directed. The school then submit the names of successful candidates to SSAT, who take a sample of portfolios for moderation. Once the in-school moderation process has been completed SSAT will ask for a random sample of portfolios. If moderation is successful, then all students with completed portfolios will be accredited. Once moderated, schools will be sent certification for their students, signed by the chief executive of SSAT.

What activities can be accredited?

SSAT does not prescribe which leadership activities are worthy of accreditation: providing students meet the criteria, bronze, silver and gold awards can be achieved. Below are some examples:

• School council
• Students as learning partners
• Students as researchers
• Mentoring
• Department reps
• Tutor reps 
• Sports leaders 
• Charity reps 
• Journalism
• Digital leaders
• Duke of Edinburgh Award

 

What are the benefits of the SLA?

As well as the prestige of accreditation, the process that students go through in becoming accredited is of great benefit. This process encourages students to:

• Critically self-reflect on their own skills as leaders,
• Work collaboratively to plan how they will meet the criteria and evidence it,
• Organise and structure their evidence,
• Peer assess others’ work against criteria,
• Aspire to take on increasingly challenging leadership responsibilities

Many of the skills students use in this process reinforce key learning competencies in the classroom and the award itself provides valuable evidence of students’ all round achievements when applying for colleges, universities or jobs.

How can my son/daughter register interest?

See Mr Mariosa in B1b at any point during the academic year. Further details on the completion of the accreditation will be provided to all involved.