My Experience with Student Voice at Aimhigher

My name is Tamzin and I am 14 years old. I first started the Student Voice programme with Aimhigher late 2019/early 2020. I got to attend two meetings, both held at a different university. The first meeting was about getting to know each other and the Aimhigher staff. We all played many games to introduce ourselves and feel comfortable to be in the programme together. We were then split into our year groups to discuss different ideas for the upcoming Student Voice Programme. It was really fun. We got pizza and drinks and time to chat amongst ourselves to make new friends. The second meeting we learnt about making vlogs, YouTube videos and many other social media tips and tricks. We had a company come in to give us a talk and live demonstrations. We were then sent off in our year groups again to film something using the tips we had just learnt. This was a really exiting experience to see what it is like on the other side of the camera. Again, we had time to eat and chat amongst each other. Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus and lockdown our meetings were not able to continue. However, we were still encouraged to do different activities at home.

After a few months we were sent an email saying our meetings would continue virtually online. This was some exciting news as it gave us (me especially) something to look forward to. Our first virtual meeting was in the Autumn term of 2020. This was a well come back session going through the aims off our programme and going through some ideas of new topics we as students would like to go through. This was important for us to make the decisions because it was our Student Voice Council. We also got the chance to invite new members to join our meetings. This leads me to our more recent meetings in January, February, and March meetings. Our January meeting was welcoming the new members and getting to know them and hear some of their ideas. We encouraged the new members to be more confident and say their opinions as we would listen to them and take it on board. In January we also had a guest speaker on how to plan our own events and clubs by giving our ideas. In this session we learned to be independent and not always relying on adults (as much as we may need them now). Our February meeting was just a catch-up meeting to speak to each other and check we were all doing ok stuck at homes. During this meeting we went over some ideas and develop them. Next, we discussed and arranged our upcoming meetings to make sure they suited all of us. In our latest meeting in March, we had a guest speaker who was an athlete training for the Olympics and a motivational speaker. His name was Julz Adeniran and he spoke to us about determination and resilience. It was very inspiring to hear people different back stories and how they got to where they are today.

The Student Voice Programme with Aimhigher has given me such a confidence boost and its proven to me that even us young adults have a voice. We have a say and a choice in many different areas and that we are in charge of our futures and no one else. I think its important that young adults get the opportunity to take part in activities such as the Student Voice because we are the new generation. Many choices decided by the adults now could have a major impact on or lives later so we should have a say too. I hope that many others are inspired by the stories told by Student Voice members to have confidence in what they say and do.