Student Experience

Click here to view the Brigantia Trust Ski Trip 2025 web page

Click here to view the Brigantia Trust Ski Trip 2024 web page

 

Woven into the curriculum to complement academic studies and offer real-life learning experiences, our broad and enviable student experience aims to equip every student with the skills, qualities, and attributes necessary for them to flourish in their professional and personal lives.

 

Leadership

Our academy has had a long tradition of valuing the thoughts and opinions of the entire community and especially the learners who are central to all we do.

 

Students at Yewlands Academy have the opportunity to become a Student Ambassador. Alongside a valuable element of Student Voice and contributing their time promoting the Academy on things such as Open Events, Parents’ Evenings and Staff Interviews.

 

We also have a Junior Leadership team, which comprises of 5 Executive Junior Leaders (1 each year) there are then 4-5 Junior Leaders in each Year Team. Junior Leaders meet half termly with SLT and have a pivotal role in the Academy Student Voice.

 

What does our Student Council do?

• Organise fundraising events to raise money for charity
• Helped produce the new behaviour system
• Helped write the Anti-bullying policy
• Meet once a term with the Principal
• Attend meetings with Taylor Shaw (the Catering company) and members of SLT
• Support Parents Evenings, Open Evenings and other high-profile events at the Academy.
• Lead tours of the academy for staff interviews and form the student interview panel
• Speak in Form time
• Deliver Christmas Hampers to the local community
• Support local food banks
• Participate in emergency exercises in the city centre
• Work with Sheffield City Council at local parks.

 

CIAG

Our aim is to inspire young people to develop their skills, talents and character through a wide range of activities, to use their curiosity and creativity to find new ways of achieving their potential and to have the confidence, drive and resilience to follow their dreams.

 

Through Years 7 to 11, students will study and take part in visits, courses, events and activities on Enrichment Days and in form time, designed to increase the future prospects of our students. 

 

Our enrichment offer includes:

• Workshops and conferences
• Charity fundraising days
• National and international trips
• A wide range of extracurricular clubs

 

Celebrations

As a close-knit community, we make every effort to celebrate each other’s successes and achievements, topical learning days, cultures and beliefs within our community.

 

• Letters of recognition and be eligible to access special recognition rewards
• Attendance raffle
• Attendance trips
• Proud Rewards
• Form time breakfast
• Special privileges

• Competitions
• Black History Month
• World Mental Health Day
• Fundraisers
• Rewards
• Sports Day
• Summer and Christmas activities
• Performances.

 

Post 16

Yewlands Academy is committed to raising standards of attainment and providing students with the skills needed to progress successfully into further education, employment and adult life.  We have a well embedded Careers Programme at Yewlands that is reviewed annually following completion of the Compass Tool to map provision against the Gatsby Benchmarks.

 

Careers education is delivered through a variety of activities:

• Enrichment days – for each year group to suspend normal timetable and focus on many aspects of Personal Development including Careers. These lessons and activities are delivered by academy staff in partnership with external delivery from outside agencies
• Assemblies
• Visits to employers, training providers, colleges and Universities from Y7-11
• Visiting speakers from different industries
• Parents evenings such as the annual Post 16 careers evening
• Post 16 ‘Market Place’ day
• Work experience for all Y10 students.

 

The programme is progressive through year groups.

 

Support

Yewlands Academy is committed to supporting all students to access learning. We recognise that some students may require a personalised approach to cater for their needs. Consequently, our approach to negative behaviour may be differentiated to cater to the needs of the student. In such cases we offer a tiered programme of structured support for learning to facilitate this.

 

The form tutor is the key member of staff who has daily contact with every child and has such has a good overview of all attendance, behaviour and academic information regarding the students in their form group. The form tutor is a key member of staff with regards to the pastoral care of our students.

 

We work closely with the Sheffield mental health support team and have extensive referral systems in place to access support from the Academy’s Educational mental health practitioner.

 

Partnerships

Partnerships are integral to the success of our academy.

 

• We work in strong partnership with our parents to support pupil learning, wellbeing and development.
• The Brigantia Learning Trust and our associated academies provide direction, leadership and the sharing of best practise and resources.
• Humanutopia.
• Targeted HE outreach projects e.g., University of Sheffield Discover US, Sheffield Hallam University Hallam 8 scheme, TPP Programme Leeds University, HEPPSY+ and Raising Aspirations projects.
• Longley Park Sixth Form Academy: Post-18 and Careers Fairs events.
• MAST-Multi Agency Support Team.
• Sheffield Futures.
• Sheffield Children’s Services.
• HEPPSY: supporting students to progress to university through university visits and guest speakers and application support.
• ReconnectEd - non-profit organisation, with the aim of reducing permanent exclusions in settings across the country.
• The Ingle Foundation - set up to address the needs of the socially excluded and those at risk of becoming socially marginalised.
• Character First - The programme's intended impact extends across a wide range of factors, including improved mental and physical health, improved attendance, behaviour and academic performance, increased employability and to have enabled social mobility.

In addition, there are multiple opportunities for students to engage with employers at Yewlands:

• Enrichment Days– speed networking, presentations, careers panels, sessions delivered by a broad range of local companies including law firms, National banks, construction companies and many more
• Assemblies – e.g., Apprenticeships
• Mock Interviews
• Work Experience
• Visits to employers – e.g., ARUP
• Employer ‘Speed networking’ events
• Employers are sourced from a range of networks including alumni, parents of alumni, STEM ambassadors, Ahead Partnership and the local Enterprise Adviser network
• A full list of providers we work with can be made available.

 

Ventures

The Brigantia Voice initiatives aims to support our pupils expand their vocabulary and oracy and maximise their learning to take their place in society. We work with our partner academies across the Trust to bring this vision to reality for every child and young person.

 

Humanutopia

We are excited to continue our work with Humanutopia this academic year. This programme supports students with important teenage issues around personal awareness, peer pressure and conformity. It also encourages our students to reflect on their life chances, encouraging them to have high hopes and aspirations for their future.

 

The experience is designed to empower young people to develop critical life skills and take motivation and ownership of their education. We are certain that this will be a positive and memorable experience for our students and feel it is a perfect complement to their academic studies.

 

We now have a team of 20 Y10 Humanutopia Heroes who will be playing a pivotal role in academy life supporting our younger learners as they start their Humanutopia journey over the coming weeks.