During all 2 years of Key Stage 4, students will have some curriculum time every week to undertake the Life Enrichment and Empowerment Programme (LEEP). The programme is designed to give students the opportunity to develop skills, knowledge and experiences that will better equip them for their future post 16.
This is an exciting scheme that focuses on the development of leadership skills linked to various practical challenges. Developed by the Archbishop of York Youth Trust, the Key Stage 4 version of The Young Leaders Award is an excellent way of adding great value to a student’s ‘leaving school’ CV! Spread over two years and covering ten modules about leadership, students build up a portfolio of evidence to achieve an accredited award.
Each module begins with 3-4 skills based teaching sessions before launching into an ‘apprentice style’ challenge relating to the relevant leadership topic. After the challenge is completed the group review the task and also have one-to-one mentoring sessions with staff in order to help them become reflective practitioners and develop their leadership skills further. Each leadership challenge that the group undertakes will vary in each module and the students should be encouraged to take the lead in this area.
There are no formal papers to take and essays to write but completion of classroom work is essential. Students are expected to be fully involved in the classroom sessions and out of school activities, but what is most important is seeing what it is that they have done in their leadership challenges.
Each student will be provided with a leadership journal for them to use to plan their work in and they will be expected to build up a portfolio of evidence around each leadership challenge and especially the ones which focus on making a positive difference in their local community. This might include photos, diary entries, letters, planning sheets, video footage etc. The school will send the Trust a selection of portfolios as evidence of the students’ work before they are awarded with the Young Leaders Award badge and certificate.
As an academy we feel it is crucial to help empower our students to become confident members of a team, develop their leadership skills and confidence with working with others; in order to make them stand out from the crowd during interviews and university applications.
