WALNEY School has spoken of its immense pride towards their year 11 students who have been taking advantage of the catch-up sessions after school as well as giving speeches in a bid to become head boy or head girl.

These sessions are in all their option subjects and the vast majority of students have committed to at least three after-school sessions each week.

Staff have worked hard to ensure that no time was lost, so students were able to start catch-up sessions on their first week back in September.

Staff have revised their schemes of learning to make sure that students are able to cover everything they need ready for the exams next Summer.

Deputy headteacher, Allison Redshaw, said: “We are particularly pleased at the can-do attitude our students are displaying and their resilience.

“It would be so easy to moan aimlessly about the situation, but our students have taken to heart the message that we gave them when they came back in September.

“We talked about the three things that resilient people do: • Accept the situation • Focus on the things that you can change • Ask yourself: are my actions now helping me or hurting me?

“Our year 11 students are focussing on the positive things they can do to work with teachers and overcome the unprecedented situation they find themselves in.”

McKenzie in year 11 said: “It’s helping us to catch up with work that we’ve missed out on over the last six months.”

Mason said: “The staff go over work that we’ve done and help us one to one in more detail.

“It’s really useful.”

The senior student team has been in place since July of this year.

Forming under such strange circumstances and developing as a team under the restrictions of new COVID guidelines, they are already proving themselves to be a resilient group, bold in the face of adversity.

Having formed a social bubble, made up of year 11 and year 7 students, the senior student team has been able to support the year 7s fully in their transition to school.

In July, the year 11 team developed, produced and distributed challenge packs to our new year 7s to complete over the summer and, since their return to school, the senior student team have enjoyed catching up with the group to find out how they found the challenges.

In addition to this, they are out on duty every break and lunchtime and visiting form periods, providing a reassuring presence and offering a friendly ear to our new students.

Over the past few days, the school also began the process of electing their head boy and head girl.

The nominees have delivered inspirational speeches to year 11 and year 7, all of whom will vote for their future leaders, along with staff in the school.

Ms Redshaw paid tribute, adding: "This has been a tricky time for all the students who have been returning to school but the Year 11 students have taken on this responsibility in their stride. "Best of luck to all the students who have put themselves forward to be head boy and head girl.