Create Education Trust launches anti-bullying tool

The Creative Education Trust is extending its partnership with The Student Voice and launching an innovative new primary pupil voice tool to prevent bullying.

The Trust successfully launched The Student Voice across its 11 secondary academies just over one year ago and is now rolling a new version out to support pupils in its six primary schools in Great Yarmouth, Stoke-on-Trent, Tamworth and Northampton. The Student Voice is a transformative reporting tool for students, aiming to eradicate the fear and stigma associated with reporting issues. It uses child-friendly tech to provide schools with insightful data on the safety of their school and local community. 

Louis Donald, Director of Safeguarding at Creative Education Trust, said: "We are delighted to expand our collaboration with The Student Voice. It's brilliant to offer our pupils more ways to share information with staff about how safe they feel at school and in the community. This initiative underscores our commitment to fostering an environment where our students can thrive and feel safe."

The Student Voice offers visual maps of all the contexts young people spend time in, including school, home and the local community parks and bus routes, enabling students to rank how safe they feel and report any issues in these contexts. The school can then offer the most appropriate and effective response and intercept safeguarding issues before they escalate, helping to prevent future harm occurring in these spaces.

It was created by Jason Tait, an active Designated Safeguarding Lead, and Stephen Willoughby. Having suffered severe bullying at school himself, Stephen left formal education and completed his studies through home-schooling, pursuing a career in computers from a young age. Stephen says: "We are really pleased that we have been able to expand our successful partnership with Creative Education Trust into their Primary Academies and offer even more pupils the opportunity to speak out about the things that matter to them, share with school leaders where they feel safe and unsafe, and give them a space to help their community. As seen in the successes of the secondary model roll out, CET and other Multi-Academy Trusts will now be able to implement an all-through student voice model for their students aged 5-18".

Richard Penn-Burton, Headteacher at Three Peaks Primary Academy, added: "We are extremely excited to receive The Student Voice's new student voice tool, having seen the positive impact it has already has within our secondary academies. This tool will empower our children to play an active role in ensuring their own safety and well-being within our academy - and the wider community".

^{Image shows (Left to right): Louis Donald and Stephen Willoughby}