STEWARDS Academy’s new Year 7s have made an impressive start to their educational journey; with half of the year group volunteering to help at Open Evening on their second day and with nearly 5000 positive points issued across the year group, this year group promises great things!

The pupils have settled in incredibly well following attendance at summer school, the induction programme they had with their tutors and pastoral lead on their first two days and the support of the Year 10 Peer Mentor team and Year 11 Student Leadership Team.

The induction programme gave Year 7s the opportunity to learn the expectations of the classroom and around the academy, tour the site with older pupils, have ice breaker and ‘getting to know you’ activities to name a few. The Peer Mentors have become a ‘familiar face’ to the tutor groups they are attached to and have enabled the Year 7s to feel particularly looked after.

When speaking with Year 7 to see how they are getting on pupils have said: “I’m really enjoying it already…I’ve loved getting involved in the clubs after-school, especially PE and drama…I’ve got a bit lost a couple of times, but the older students always help me…my form tutor has been really good and helped me make new friends.”

Di da Vighi, Enrichment Co-Ordinator, said: “The Year 10 and Year 11 pupils came in at the start of term for two days of training with a large focus on supporting the younger pupils. This is the largest team of peer mentors that Stewards has had, and they have a wealth of different experiences that will help the younger pupils throughout the year. The overwhelming (paraphrased) response when pupils were interviewed for the post and asked why they had applied for the position was, ‘I remember my peer mentor from Year 7, and they were really helpful. I want to be able to help the younger students in the same way.’ 

Peer on peer support is a really important part of life at Stewards and I am so pleased we are able to offer it again this year. We are also expanding the provision and the Year 11s will be supporting the Year 8 tutor groups and offering one-on-one mentoring where needed. I am so proud of the commitment these pupils have shown to their positions of responsibility since the start of term.”  

If you are interested in following the life of Stewards Academy, we regularly have updates on Twitter and Instagram. Please follow us @StewardsAcademy and @Stewards_Head on Twitter and @stewardsacademy on Instagram.  A final source of information is here on YourHarlow where you can see lots of things we have been up to previously:   

 http://www.yourharlow.com/category/education/stewards-academy