Our aim: 

 To encourage students to take an active role in their school community, to help grow confidence, develop skills and improve the environment stakeholders learn, work and live in.​

At West Exe School, we place a key emphasis on empowering our students and encourage them to take on leadership roles within the school.  

Leadership Opportunity include:   

• Equality for All ​
• Green team ​
• MP (Students voice + Student Panel ) ​
• Prefect team​
• Tour guides​
• Primary mentors ​
• Library team ​
• Anti-bullying ambassadors​
• Well-being ambassadors ​
• Sports Leaders ​
• House reps 
• Year 8 reception team​

School Parliament

At West Exe we are committed to responding to the views and ideas of our students.

Our School Parliament is chaired by the Head Boy and Head Girl. Members of Parliament (MP) are elected from each tutor group, and gather to represent the student body’s views at Parliament Sittings three times per year. The Head perfects then feed back to the Senior Leadership Team, who respond the following week with outcomes and decisions. The MP will then feed this back to their tutor group.

Charity and Fundraising

We are dedicated to supporting local, national and international charities. As part of our House week offer, students vote for which house they would like to raise money for throughout the school year. Students are responsible for the organisation and running of the fundraising events with the support of their Head of House.

Welfare Ambassadors

Anyone is welcome to sign-up to be a Welfare Ambassador. Together with the link Year 11 Prefects, these ambassadors work to raise awareness about Anti-bullying, Mental Health and E-Safety over the three cycles in the year. Students may choose to focus on an area of their choice to put on assemblies, events, drop-ins and give advice.

Primary Mentors

Primary Mentors are pupils in Year 7 and Year 9 who apply to work with Miss Lewis to support Year 6’s in their transition to West Exe. Their role includes:

• Visits to local primary schools
• Facilitating Year 6 transition day in July
• Escorting new Year 7’s in September to their classes
• Being a friendly support

Year 8 student reception team

The Year 8 receptionist team is a rolling rota where every Year 8 has the opportunity for one day, to be a part of the operations and heartbeat of the working school. This activity is part of the students work experience and our school careers programme, as well as an important part of our schools student character and culture focus. Every Year 8 will spend one day on reception and work in pairs to optimise team work.

Mrs Fossey picked Year 8’s to be the face of the school and wanted our Year 8’s to be the  first people, once signed in, for our visitor meets and provide that important first impression of the school.  During their day, students develop  social skills and grow in confidence as they welcome  every visitor to the school.

The tutor groups have a training session, with lots of amusing acting and we role play varying situations before they start their turn.

During the day the students key responsibilities can include:             

• Welcome visitors as they approach the school  
• Being  warm and smiley  
• Hosting/escorting visitors into the main building and delivering them to their meeting locations
• Delivering messages to teacher or students including PE kits and forgotten lunch boxes
• Supporting the business support team with small admin jobs such a laminating and photo copying and setting up events.
• Delivering reminders
• Checking on the facilities to check they are up to standard and reporting back so it can be fixed. (as requested by the student voice program)

We know that all jobs have busy and quiet periods, some parts are less interesting and this is part of life.  When the reception is quiet students have a chrome book and can  work on Sparx or work from the Google platform that is available to them.  

Our expectations are high and it’s an honour and a privilege to be trusted with this role and our student make us proud. Visitors to the school have commented on how polite and kind the students are. Heads from other schools are envious of this program. Staff have reported how resilient and good at problem solving they are, as many things may happen in the day we were not expecting.  At the end of the day the student are asked to write a reflection and answer key questions on their day. The most common observation is that students didn’t know how busy the school was, how many agencies visit, how many lunch boxed are forgotten. 

This is a fully inclusive program, many of our students who struggle with other aspects of school life thrive in this role and build positive relations with our team. We make adaptions as any work place would for varying needs and at the end of each tutor groups turn, the group are congratulated in person by Mrs Fossey and merits are awarded.

We hope you get to meet the Year 8 team too and play your part in growing their confidence in meeting and speaking to new people.